To achieve tangible outcomes, health care organizations and the biopharma industry needs to implement internal processes for identifying and eliminating the causes of health disparities. Patient advocates and HCPs of color can play a particularly important role in removing barriers to care.

• Examine social determinants of health for patients across different chronic diseases
• Discuss strategies that have been implemented to accelerate these efforts
• Understand how social determinants impact health inequities
• Set targets and build an organization focused on health equity
• Best practices to address unconscious bias

Healthcare and medical inequities impacting underrepresented demographics add up to a staggering $1-2 trillion in economic losses. From both a moral and financial perspective, designing more diverse and inclusive clinical trials is an increasingly prominent goal for the biopharma industry – but how can your team turn that vision into a reality?

• Discuss effective strategies to engage and communicate with the patient community to achieve results
• Examine why the patient’s perspective should be integrated into clinical study development
• Address working with trial sites to ensure diverse and inclusive enrollment
• Meet the patients where they are by moving beyond patient databases
• Identify and engage diverse sites or locations in underserved communities
• Examine the role regulatory agencies play in advancing diversity

There are barriers to diversity in clinical trials that you may not see. Trial criteria themselves can limit eligibility; in Black patients, comorbidities such as hypertension, diabetes and chronic kidney disease are common, yet are the top exclusionary comorbidities included in trial protocols in many therapeutic areas. To enable a more diverse and inclusive outcome it is necessary to build the necessary infrastructure at the design of the trial.

• Examine the barriers to access based on eligibility criteria
• Hear suggestions to clearly define relevant study objectives and endpoints
• Identify discrepancies in eligibility criteria that impacts different groups
• Avoid writing protocols that impact eligibility
• Evolve inclusion and exclusion criteria to increase chances for diverse patients to pass screening

Investigator Sponsored Research is an area that may not be considered in most Clinical Trial Diversity initiatives, but it can present a unique opportunity because inclusion lessons from ISR programs can yield benefits for clinical trial design. It can also provide opportunities to investigators studying health inequities, help fill data gaps in underrepresented populations, and enhance community representation in patient recruitment.

• Understand the reasons to incorporate diversity in ISR programs
• Examine realistic options and common challenges when adding diversity in an ISR program
• Strategize the best metrics and next steps

The industry is requesting, and regulators are demanding more diversity in clinical trials. It’s estimated that nearly three out of every four clinical trials today are conducted by contract research organizations (CROs).

• Review what CROs can do to be effective in supporting diversity in clinical trials and champion this work in a unique way sponsors and sites cannot do on their own
• Hear how CROs are uniquely positioned to bridge and support sponsor and site patient diversity efforts

Racial and ethnic minorities represent a disproportionately high fraction (55-62%) of Medicaid beneficiaries, and nearly two-thirds are living with one or more chronic conditions. The Clinical Treatment Act has not only removed a financial barrier for Medicaid beneficiaries to participate in clinical research, it has also created an urgent imperative for all stakeholders in clinical research to learn how to engage the Medicaid population and drive their inclusion in clinical research.

• Discuss strategies to engage the Medicaid population and facilitate clinical trial participation
• Advocate internally for collaborative, community-based strategies to reach the Medicaid population where they live
• Explain why the Clinical Treatment Act matters for increasing representation in clinical trials

What should planning and executing a real health equity strategy look like? This session examines the distinct role and value of patient advocacy, patient engagement, and patient recruitment working together to enable health equity.

• Examine the different roles based on organization size and structure
• Discuss where health equity sits in the organization
• Examine functional consideration based on organizational size and product life cycle

People of different race, ethnicity, gender, and age do not respond to medication in the same way, yet less than 20% of participants in the key clinical trials that lead to the approval of new medicines are minorities. Partnering with a diverse pool of patients early in the design and development process will build trust, enhance their experience, increase engagement and trial retention rates—and ensure that the drugs being developed are safe and effective across sub-groups.

• Demonstrate the clinical and scientific importance of diversity in early clinical development
• Examine how a patient-centric approach must highlight diversity
• Unveil ways in which patient groups can support drug development through diverse patient recruitment
• Map out wider eligibility criteria earlier in the drug development process