Patient centricity seems to be an obvious focus for pharmaceutical companies. After all, their core business is to develop drugs and treatments to meet specific patient needs. Yet, patient centricity is not evident across the end-to-end pharma value chain, from identifying unmet patient needs through drug discovery and development to product availability and treatment. For example, on average, 30% of patients leave clinical trials before their scheduled treatment completion date, often because of the high burden of the trials on their lives.

CAR-T (chimeric antigen receptor T-cell) therapy involves the use of genetically re-engineered versions of a patient’s own T-cells to find cancer cells and defeat them. As of March 2020, there are two CAR-T therapies licensed for use – Kymriah® and Yescarta®. CAR-T has pushed the boundaries of medicine, and the success observed in patient treatment has created interest in the use of CAR-T to treat a number of other types of tumors. This is evidenced by the number of clinical trials involving the use of CAR-T to treat a range of cancers (Figures below).