Bharat Tewarie,  Vasudev Bailey,  Maxwell Rebarber, and Jennings Xu

1.30.2019

UCB, ARTIS Ventures, and Quid have leveraged artificial  intelligence and natural language processing to algorithmically analyze  over 500,000 public, anonymous patient comments online to understand  what needs of chronic patients are unmet. Our analysis  has utilized the power of the machine to move us past our unconscious  assumptions on what these patients want and to augment traditional focus  groups in which a small group of people often represent the voice of a  population. This report demonstrates the utility of large scale text  mining for delivering real value to chronic patients and ensuring every  voice is heard.

Collective voices of the online patient communities across 10  different diseases have been heard: 6 out of 8 of patients' top unmet  needs are more emotional than medical.  Patients want to understand how  to live with their diseases, adapt daily routines to accommodate side  effects, and connect with other patients to share their journeys. For  some patients, including those with epilepsy, Crohn’s disease, and  Alzheimer’s disease, this call for help has become increasingly pressing  as patients are becoming even more negative over time online.

Current systems fail in humanizing patients.  Emotional needs are  still largely unaddressed while medical needs are the focus of current  efforts and innovation.  There remains a large opportunity for health  care stakeholders to come together to treat patients as  people rather than a set of symptoms and to provide greater support,  awareness, and education. By doing so, we can define real patient  value through the patient’s lens, addressing both their emotional  and medical needs. Only then can we innovate, build and deliver the  solutions that will ultimately help patients live the lives that they  choose.

Report authors are: Bharat Tewarie, Executive Vice President and  Chief Marketing Officer, UCB Biopharma; Vasudev Bailey, Partner, Artis  Ventures; Maxwell Rebarber, Vice President, Enterprise, Quid; Jennings  Xu, Senior Manager, Enterprise, Quid.

Read the full report here.