A Biopharmaceutical Company that Puts the Patient First

Why would a biopharmaceutical company care about patient experience, you ask? More and more, healthcare companies are realizing that the best care solutions extend far beyond the discovery or delivery of medications—rather they need to cater to a person’s entire care ecosystem. This is why Immunomedics partnered with frog on in-depth design research to uncover insights about the patient journey that would help them evolve into a more patient-centric bio-tech company.

Starting with the patient journey
The initial challenge for frog was to help Immunomedics conduct research on the patient journey in order to uncover pain points and needs left unmet by healthcare providers and treatments alone. We started by looking at those affected by Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC), which is an aggressive cancer with limited effective treatment options and innovation in recent years. Together, we conducted in-depth field research to understand the full ecosystem of care and support. Through interviews with women with TNBC, as well as their caregivers, healthcare providers and cancer care advocates, frog gained critical insights that led to the development of a three-part platform to address the specific needs, motivations and pain points of women with TNBC. “Ultimately, our engagement resulted in the creation of a digital community platform that provides a trusted space for people affected by cancer to share their stories and reliable resources,” says Immunomedics.

The resulting “Her Story” concept was designed as an online platform meant to disrupt the lack of trusted information surrounding this aggressive cancer by providing women with TNBC with affirmation, connection and community. In the “Her Story” platform, people living with TNBC share their experiences with others with TNBC and with the broader community, as well as access crucial information about this type of cancer.

In 2018, Immunomedics took these concepts to market with the launch of Humanly, a platform designed to celebrate the humanity of people living with cancer and provide guidance and support. The company evolved the “Her Story” concept and to reach a wider audience by addressing all people living with cancer. Our Stories on Humanly provides comprehensive and personalized information and resources across every stage of living with cancer. Our Stories allows users to connect with others at similar stages in their journey to share their advice, encouragement, resources and support.

Insights lead to actions
In addition to the concept for Her Story, we also designed an immersive patient-experience environment for Immunomedics that helped to define the company’s ethos around patient-centricity. The assets we created for the boardroom—including stories and insights from our research—lived on as a tangible reminder of the kinds of decisions the company would continue to make.