Health Equity Priorities for Pharmaceutical Manufacturers: Payer Perceptions From a Global Survey

OBJECTIVES: The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) defines health inequalities as “differences in health across the population, and between different groups in society, that are systematic, unfair and avoidable”. As pharmaceutical manufacturers and the greater life sciences industry aim to improve health equity by overcoming disparities, payer perspectives on top actionable priorities remain unknown. This research aimed to discover which activities pharmaceutical industry should focus on to help achieve health equity goals.

METHODS: Payer perspectives were collected via a global survey conducted by the Rapid Payer Response (RPR^TM) platform by Genesis Research Group. RPR^TM sourced data from a network of 3,500 stakeholders across more than 65 countries. Respondents (N=31) were located in the United States (N=10), France (N=5), Italy (N=5), the United Kingdom (N=5), Brazil (N=3), and China (N=3). Respondents rated priorities on a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 is most important. Double-blinded surveys were distributed in March 2024; responses received by April, 2024

RESULTS: Payers identified access disparities as paramount to address across all markets due to their deep-seated connections with societal and contextual elements. Specifically for pharmaceutical manufacturers, the top priority to address is improving clinical trial diversity. Other priorities marked as “highly important” (2.8-5.0 mean rating) were investing in data generation/analyses (e.g. RWE analytics) to understand differences in outcomes and risks by subgroup (mean rating score: 4.1), improving understanding of health disparity drivers and measures (4.1), and improved engagement with policy makers to find solutions (3.8).

CONCLUSIONS: To improve health inequalities, payers identified the development and utilization of better data for measuring disparities as a future action item. Specifically, top priorities for manufacturers are to improve clinical trial diversity and real-world evidence to measure disparity. Further industry and payer alignment on these action items and goals is warranted.