Gareth Williams
President, Sciensus Rare
Gareth Williams, President of Sciensus Rare, discusses his organisation’s role in providing turnkey solutions for rare disease pharma and biotech companies.
What can Sciensus Rare help a pharma/biotech company within rare disease with?
We have been supporting rare disease patients since 1992, treating on average over 200,000 patients a year – we understand the challenges for the patient, clinician and pharma. Sciensus Rare support our pharma clients so wherever a patient lives or the regulatory governance of that country. We can safely provide product across the life cycle, from early access to commercial launch, delivering vital medication and clinical services for families that need it most. To date this has covered over 70 rare diseases for 20 clients.
What is your turnkey solution for rare disease pharma and biotech companies launching products in the EU and MENA (Middle East/North Africa)?
Many of our pharma clients are launching their first product and have little or no existing infrastructure. Sciensus Rare offers a turnkey solution, tailored to each individual client’s requirements, allowing them to focus on their sales and marketing efforts while we handle the challenging country to country regulatory and distribution requirements. They can tap into an existing proven network in 28 countries with trading relationships already established with over 4000 hospitals, retail pharmacy and wholesalers. We have in country General Managers and business development within Europe and MENA who have local expertise, and a multilingual international customer service team expert in individual country regulations and tendering.
Last year we took 1.1 million orders and made 1.2 million deliveries.
What is your capability from early access to warehousing, logistics, patient support and outcome monitoring?
Within early access we conduct a full regulatory assessment, make recommendations on options for access, support clinicians with funding requests and facilitate ordering via our online portal Sciensus Axcess. If your patients need any further support, we can advise on a range of service through our nurse led support programs.
Within logistics we offer a fully managed and regulatory EMA GDP compliant service, taking control of the entire supply process around warehousing, distribution and cash collection. Last year we took 1.1 million orders and made 1.2 million deliveries. We can also handle country specific contract and tendering requirements.
With over half of our staff clinically trained, our approach to patient care is flexible and designed around the requirements of the drug and the needs of the patient, clinician and pharma company. With 500 in house and a further 450 flexible contract nurses, we have clinical trial nurses trained in specific therapy areas, nursing homecare with drug delivery and nurse interaction options, in country patient support and training.
We have European coverage in the home or in clinical setting for outcome monitoring and controlled data collation. That includes pharmacovigilance reporting, patient safety follow ups, and real-world evidence for extensions, reimbursement approval, and contribution to registries.
What elements do your customers value?
A constant theme coming back from our customers is that we understand rare diseases, whether it be unlicensed or licensed products and make the process simple for them. Working across multiple countries with a single specialist is just easier, giving them full transparency on activities carried out on their behalf, they can rely on us to achieve KPIs particularly around order processing and cash collection, and resolving any issues in a timely, ethical and regulatory compliant manner. We have customers with products focussing on thousands to tens of thousands patients, clients who have grown with us, starting with an initial product, to us now supporting their entire portfolio. We see ourselves as a healthcare partner rather than a standard service provider. We help pharma and patients get the most out of their products. This has all grown our business to more than £350 million across 28 markets.
