• An Aston University and Alpharmaxim Knowledge Transfer Partnership has produced a white paper addressing barriers in disease treatment
• Recent research has led to new drugs which act in new ways but doctors prefer to stick to tried-and-tested treatments
• The white paper is aimed at pharmaceutical and biotech companies launching new treatments, offering tips to overcome the barriers.

Alpharmaxim, a specialist healthcare communications agency, has published a white paper for pharmaceutical and biotech companies outlining an innovative tool to overcome barriers to prescribing new drugs for major diseases, developed with Aston University.

New pharmaceuticals can take many years to develop, yet prescribing doctors’ reluctance to adopt them remains a significant challenge. They may prefer tried-and-tested treatments, or those which target familiar causes and symptoms. The Healthcare Behaviour Insights Tool (H-BIT), developed through a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) between Aston University and Alpharmaxim, was originally developed to address barriers to new treatments for Parkinson’s disease, but can now be tailored to a range of complex and rare diseases where there is growing recognition of the need to change prescribing behaviours.

Parkinson’s: Beyond the hidden barriers to adoption of new treatments, explains how H-BIT applies behavioural science to understand why doctors remain tethered to established treatment protocols. By understanding that, pharmaceutical firms with innovative new drugs to promote can achieve the necessary change in doctor’s beliefs, routines and motivations.

By changing doctors’ prescribing behaviour, H-BIT will mean that patients can more easily access the most modern, effective medications for their conditions.

The work to develop H-BIT drew on Aston University’s expertise in behavioural science to deepen understanding of clinical decision-making. A key part of the research was the use of the nominal group technique in designing the survey for prescribing doctors to identify the barriers. The nominal group technique allows each person’s ideas to be shared one at a time with the wider group. Each idea is then voted on. This ensures every idea gets equal attention and that no loud voices can dominate a discussion. This ensured the final survey was relevant, complete, and focused on what the clinicians truly thought what was of importance.

Will Hind, CEO of Alpharmaxim, said:

“We identified key barriers that are in place to stop prescribers from changing their behaviour and adopting a new therapy in Parkinson’s and by doing so were able to determine the behavioural components of those barriers and can potentially make suggestions as to the approaches that may be most likely at overcoming them – hopefully enabling the new medications to more easily reach the people who need them most – the patients.”

Dr Carl Senior, reader at Aston University School of Psychology, and the lead academic on the KTP, said:

“This is going to transform the way we think about prescribing which will ultimately lead to a better quality of life with patients suffering from this terrible disease.”

Visit https://alpharmaxim.com/parkinsons-beyond-the-hidden-barriers/ to read the white paper.

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, funded by Innovate UK, are collaborations between a business, a university and a highly qualified research associate. The UK-wide programme helps businesses to improve their competitiveness and productivity through the better use of knowledge, technology and skills. Aston University is a sector-leading KTP provider, ranked first for project quality, and joint first for the volume of active projects. The project with Alpharmaxim has been graded highly by Innovate UK, receiving a “Very Good” rating for its potential impact.

For more information on the KTP visit the webpage.