The posters have been presented, the stands have come down, and the attendees have returned home from ISPOR Europe 2022. Yet (whilst feeling a little tired) the buzz, energy and inspiration remains for our team. In this post, Phil Richardson (Chief Innovation Officer) shares his commentary as a newcomer and top 10 influencer at ISPOR. First though, some of our regular attendees reflect on one of the best, busiest, and most energising ISPORs.
“I felt that the conference had a real buzz about it. It was motivating and energising to speak to so many different people and you could tell how happy everyone was to be back meeting in person. Despite concerns before we went that it might be quiet, we probably had our busiest ISPOR yet and I’m really excited to follow up on all the great conversations we had.” – Lydia Crowe, Commercial Director
We were delighted to find ourselves in the heart of the action, close to sessions and the ever packed-out poster hall.
“ISPOR had a great atmosphere this year with attendees embracing everything the conference had to offer – from sessions that were ‘standing room only’ to packed poster presenting hours, there was an infectious energy throughout the 3 days. We were fortunate that our booth position put us right at the centre of this!” – Catrin Treharne, Director, Health Economics
We presented seven independent research posters during the conference, on topics across market access, health technology assessment and health economics. See our full poster programme here.
“I said to a few people that it was the best ISPOR I had been to. There was a good atmosphere – I think everyone there appreciated the fact that face-to-face conferences are possible again and it was great to see clients after such a long break” – Clare Foy, Director – Global Market Access
Whilst the majority of our team have attended many ISPOR conferences, for our new Chief Innovation Officer, Phil Richardson, this was an entirely new experience. Phil joins Mtech Access direct from the NHS, and so views the world of HEOR from a fresh perspective. Phil proactively engaged in in-person and virtual discussions throughout the conference. Indeed, he was recognised by ISPOR as one of the top 10 influencers on both Monday and Tuesday for his tweets (@DrPJRichardson).
A perspective on ISPOR Europe 2022 – from top 10 influencer Phil Richardson
Phil Richardson shares his thoughts and reflections on the ISPOR conference:
The main stage at ISPOR opened with a commitment for industry and the regulators to work more closely together. This set a great tone for ISPOR 2022 and seemed to energise people for the rest of the event.
This was my first ISPOR after joining Mtech Access 5 weeks ago from the NHS. I was interested to find out more about the relationship between industry, regulators and how that translated into improved care for patients.
I also wanted to know how the macroeconomic factors were considered in practice, and the importance of evidence that was more than cost savings and clinical effectiveness. Whilst both are clearly important, my perspective, shaped by a background as a health system leader, views health value through a lens of workforce impact, settings of care change, models of care improvement, clinical networks effectiveness and streamlining pathways; including improving patient and staff experiences. I wanted to understand how this all joined up.
I tried to balance my time between thought provoking talks on topics such as precision medicine, addressing equity, and the role of carers in outcomes, with time in the social areas such as over lunch and at the stand.
I also wanted to spend focused time discussing research themes in the poster area. A thoroughly enjoyable experience as many jostled to share their research with an information hungry crowd. I hadn’t seen anything as positive as this before in a poster space. Often stoical researchers left to watch the tumbleweed of silence overtaken by background chatter and teaspoon rattle for some far off group. This was very different. People were very engaged. I was surrounded by a hubbub of curiosity.
My packed tailored agenda enveloped me in a brilliant blend of ideas from Pharma to specialist university groups as well as a thought-provoking perspective from Japan, US, Taiwan, Canada and Switzerland – at least, these were countries I managed to explore. I was surprised and pleased to see the cooperative atmosphere between the competitive communities, be they Pharma, Medtech, HEOR and access consultancies, or specialist providers. There was a real sense of everyone focusing on the single purpose of patient benefit. A triumph for ISPOR and its stewardship of talented members.
Everyone acknowledged that whilst progress had been made on many fronts, the challenges and opportunities from technical developments, changing legislations and guidance, increasing complexity and the developing integrated cohesion seen within health systems means that there is more to do.
I was encouraged by the conversations on data as an enabler of decisions and the recognition that innovation would need to balance qualitative as well as the more familiar quantitative data sources.
It will be interesting to see how we all go forward balancing the tension between experimentation and evidence and how we grapple with the need to model multi-morbidities in communities and neighbourhoods; whilst also thinking about health system decision-making and at the same time, critically examine receptor binding points on a partially expressed protein.
For me, this is clearly only possible if we all work together from the macro to the nano scale – from the wider determinants of health to the molecular determinant of change.
There was a clarion call for evidence from the first plenary session. I would add we need a clarion call for collaboration.
Thank you to all those who made the the time to visit our stand or view our posters at ISPOR Europe this year. If you’d like to learn more about our ISPOR research programme, or our HEOR and market access services, please email info@mtechaccess.co.uk.
