SPEAKER_01 0:00

For Your Health News is here with Jocelyn Ulrich, representing Pharma. Spotlight is on you to talk about Pharma and some of the grants and how this work is helping communities move forward.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Yeah, thanks, and thanks for having me. Of course. I'm thrilled to be here. So, you know, we were talking earlier today on the panel, and I can highlight some of the things Pharma has been doing. We know that social factors have a lot to do with how patient outcomes, you know, end up happening for patients. So where you work and live has a lot to do with how you experience health care. Are doctors available? Is it a pharmacy desert? What is your access to healthy food and water like? And so Pharma created a CARES grant program. To date, we have given out over half a million dollars in grants to improve health equity and equitable access to medicines. So it's been a very successful program. We also gave out a much larger grant, that's about $20 million to several academic medical centers, Vanderbilt, Morehouse, and the Yale School of Medicine. And the goal of that partnership was to build clinical trial sites in local communities. So to make sure that we were providing the ability to participate in a clinical trial where patients work and live. And that is going to help ensure that there is some long-term infrastructure at the community level. And we have a lot of learnings from that. We're in our learning phase now, so we're hoping to understand what's really going to move the needle on diversity in clinical research. No, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

And clinical research is something that a lot of communities just are not aware of. They are not sure if it's for them. And we've talked a lot about clinical trials and how we need to have more diverse voices and diverse people in clinical trials. Is pharma doing any work in that and making sure that more people feel comfortable coming and working within this research?

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Absolutely. So beyond just the grant to create the infrastructure, our member companies are also deeply committed to making a difference here. I think over time we've learned a lot about what really matters to make sure that, again, we have research sites that are in communities. We've been using different tools like digital health, decentralized clinical trials. With the COVID pandemic, we learned a lot about how to bring research to patients in their homes. That's made a big difference so that patients don't have to travel so far to a site. I think we've become much more attuned to how we explain the clinical trial process to patients and made sure that there are people in the community who are well-versed in explaining the benefits of volunteering for clinical trials so that we can build trust in the community and that they're learning about the opportunity, say from their local church or from their community groups or their local healthcare center, so that they feel more comfortable. And so over time, I think we're learning a lot about what it means to meet people where they are and to re-establish the trust. So our companies are working very hard to do that, has really been a priority over the last decade at least. And you know, we're hoping that we'll continue to see improved rates of participation across many disease states.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

And as working at Pharma, are there any things that are particularly surprising for you being on the inside once you're engaging with this community? Are there questions that you're seeing that you're like, oh, I didn't think about this before, but working within these communities, I've learned so much more about what they need.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

I think you know, we've really learned to listen to the community and you know, um, things that happened in the past, Tuskegee, other things that really were important really matter. And so we have to acknowledge that and and you know, um address that and rebuild the trust. Um, beyond our member companies, pharma also has clinical trials principles, and so we have committed to addressing diversity and improving health equity in those efforts. Um, so again, it's about really listening well and understanding and meeting people where they are.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

No, that's important. And historically, people, when they think about the pharmaceutical industry, they're not saying, oh, maybe it's a place that wants to hear my voice. But what I'm hearing from you is that we actually want to hear your voice. Yeah. This is not something that's an isolated process. You providing us information helps us to be able to provide better, you know, solutions for the health issues might you might be facing. Is that the case? I don't want to put words in your mouth. Okay. Great. Is there anything that's particularly like let's say next year, you're like, watch out for that. This might be coming down the pipeline that you want to preview for us.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

We do have a new report that's going to be coming out sometime this year, pretty soon, um, talking about just the industry's diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. So, not just about clinical research, but what are companies in the biopharmaceutical sector doing to improve workforce development, to um create resources like employee resource groups, um, create a STEM pipeline. So, we're doing a lot of work um in communities to bring more diverse um people into the industry itself. So you'll see that report coming out um sometime soon as well from Pharma.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Yeah, and I like that pipeline. So many people are just how do how does it how do I get there? What does the job look like in there? And so I'm glad that Pharma is working on that. Thank you so much for being part of this podcast and being part of this conversation. Thanks for having me. Of course.