UBC as Your Rare Disease & Orphan Drug Partner
Just because a patient population is small doesn't mean that those patients require less support. Patients facing rare diseases need integrated, high-touch care to access life-saving medications. UBC supports the entire rare-disease product lifecycle from Sponsors who are developing products to improve the diagnosis and treatment of these conditions to manufacturers who are bringing these breakthrough medications to market. Our teams have supported many rare diseases and orphan indications over the years.
UBC has provided clinical development and late stage services for more than 35 rare-disease projects, touching more than 8,900 subjects and 1,500 sites.
Supporting Development of Breakthrough Therapies for Rare Diseases
UBC offers Global Periapproval Services & Late Stage Clinical Research services tailored to rare diseases, including clinical trial implementation and management, patient recruitment, peri and postapproval studies, registries, and value demonstration studies.
Finding the right sites and subjects is challenging for all studies, but even more so for small patient populations. UBC’s site feasibility team utilizes an extensive, proprietary investigator database for site identification, to administer feasibility assessments, and for direct outreach to rare-disease foundations, patient advocacy groups, and treatment centers of excellence.
To help our Sponsors overcome recruitment challenges, our Patient & Physician Services team utilizes data-driven solutions. Our deep scientific understanding, epidemiological approach, and data-driven solutions allow us to deliver our pharmaceutical Sponsors valuable insights and rapid results for patient, physician, and site recruitment.
Ensuring Your Orphan Product is Safe to Use
Due to sparse or incomplete rare-disease clinical trial data, Sponsors encounter many challenges when trying to assess orphan drug risk and safety. Also, these patients often tolerate higher uncertainty because an alternative drug is usually unavailable. Our Risk Management & Pharmacovigilance services help pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturers maximize orphan product performance by managing risk before, during, and after launch.
UBC has developed, implemented, and/or evaluated more risk management programs than any other provider, including for more than 15 rare diseases.
Over the past 10 years, UBC's Reimbursement Hubs have coordinated services for more than 44,000 patients with rare diseases and handled more than 866,800 high-touch calls.
Navigating a Complex Therapeutic Journey
UBC knows that seamless coordination is the key to ensuring a successful therapeutic journey. For rare-disease patients, this journey is as unique as they are. Our Reimbursement services provide unique solutions that ensure patient journeys are navigated successfully.
Building relationships with trusted Healthcare Professionals helps rare-disease patients fully engage in their treatment. Year after year, nurses rank as the most trusted professionals in the country. Our Nursing & Adherence solutions provide patient-centric care, therapy education, and product administration — frequently, where the patient is most comfortable: A UBC-trained clinician is within driving distance of 90% of the U.S. population.
UBC’s Expanded Access Programs have provided more than 3,900 patients with rare diseases access to various investigational orphan products.
Expanded Access Programs
Over the years, pharmaceutical manufacturers and Sponsors have worked hard to find breakthrough therapy products to treat rare diseases. However, currently, only 5% of the roughly 7,000 rare diseases in the world have approved treatment options. While patients wait for a therapy to be approved to treat their disease, many pharmaceutical manufacturers and Sponsors are utilizing Expanded Access Programs (EAPs) for their orphan products.
UBC is the only company that combines all of the necessary services to provide a seamless patient journey. Engaging experts in Clinical Development, Reimbursement Hubs, Nursing, and Specialty Pharmacy at the outset of an EAP allows UBC to offer a true start-to-finish solution and a panoramic view of patient care throughout the process and across the globe.
Experts
UBC thought leaders have a long history of meeting the needs of Sponsors focused on orphan diseases. Our work, performed globally, has ranged from providing strategic planning support, to designing multiple types of research engagements and high-touch programs, to communicating our findings in publications and conference presentations. In certain cases, our research efforts have been the first-ever studies in a specific disease.
Annette Stemhagen, DrPH, FISPE
Sr. Vice President & Chief Scientific Officer
Shazia Ahmad
Director, Patient & Physician Services
Nicole Hebbert
Sr. Vice President, Patient Support Services