Virtual 17th Annual Meeting of ISMPP

Share this page
Share this page on LinkedIn

Day 1 key take-homes and insights

Unused vaccines can't save lives – embracing an opportunity to overcome vaccination hesitancy in the midst of a global pandemic - Alan Cowland (Medical Writer, Oxford PharmaGenesis)

The response to the COVID-19 pandemic clearly demonstrates that public trust is necessary for sufficient participation in a mass vaccination campaign to ensure its ultimate success. The production of effective vaccines in a short timescale has been remarkable, but levels of public trust in governments, business and healthcare systems remain low in some parts of the world. To address the issue, effective communication is essential.

The language of clinical trials and vaccine development has become mainstream in a short space of time. However, this has not necessarily been accompanied by an accurate understanding of the terminology. As such, public education in the use of terms such as ‘severe adverse event’ is necessary. There is also a requirement for wider use of plain language, either in the form of alternative versions of documents, such as clinical trial summaries, or by ensuring that press releases use language that is more widely understood.

The need for clarity and transparency from pharmaceutical companies is paramount. The timing of the release of information has also proven to be critical, balancing a need for honesty with a desire for completeness.

A large gap remains between the general public and the accurate communication of public health information, requiring a proactive approach. Social media is a highly emotional environment whose commentators need to be heard and engaged with. This offers the opportunity to apply an innovative solution by using members of the scientific and medical community to engage with the public on these platforms.

Keynote: The public face of science – building trust - Eleni Tente (Associate Medical Writer, Oxford PharmaGenesis)

Public distrust in healthcare systems, directed towards physicians, regulatory authorities and the pharmaceutical industry in general, has increased in recent decades. In addition, the diffusion of selective and often non-peer-reviewed information via mass media can add to misinformation and negatively shape public perception of healthcare systems. Public rejection of medical and scientific findings has major consequences for current public health but may also threaten future medical innovations that rely on clinical research led by pharmaceutical companies.

The presenters identified patient engagement and open access publication as the key components for building trust and bridging the gap between researchers and the data presented for public consumption

Pharmaceutical companies should endeavour to understand who their target patients are and engage with them in a transparent and sustained way. This can be achieved by adopting the practice of structuring studies through patient engagement plans. Furthermore, transparency can be improved if more pharmaceutical companies commit to mandatory open access publication, which would ensure that peer-reviewed data becomes widely accessible.

A preprint pandemic: the evolving role of preprint servers in the COVID-19 era & preprint debate – to preprint or not? - Rebecca Burge (Associate Medical Writer, Oxford PharmaGenesis)

The number of biomedical and life sciences manuscripts submitted to preprint servers has surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, raising questions as to the regulation of preprints in medical publishing.

Preprints have the potential to accelerate scientific research by allowing it to reach larger audiences more quickly and by facilitating input from a wider range of researchers. However, preprints are not peer reviewed, and the misinterpretation of preprint data by the media or the public could reduce trust in science. In the pharmaceutical industry, liability concerns surrounding data misinterpretation and off-label misuse must also be considered. For these reasons, academic and industry preclinical data are considered more suitable for use in preprints than clinical trial data.

However, much can be done to mitigate the risks associated with preprints: preprint servers can implement prominent declarations on preprint articles, perform more rigorous checks for health science manuscripts and consider what ‘do no harm’ means in the context of preprints. The American Medical Writers Association, European Medical Writers Association and International Society for Medical Publication Professionals also suggest citing preprints as personal communications, clearly distinguishing preprints from peer-reviewed articles and standardizing screening procedures across preprint servers.

At the end of the session, audience members were asked to offer their opinion on preprints; just under half of respondents (44%) voted in favour of preprints, whereas the remainder (56%) voted against their use.

What makes us an award winning HealthScience consultancy?

Our services are transformative: we're experts in publications, medical affairs, informatics and patient engagement. Our people are extraordinary: we help clients to bring new treatments to the world in areas of unmet medical need. Our vision is powerful: we're shaping the future through transparent and accessible research.