Summarizing the HARMONY Workshop on the Definition of Meaningful Outcomes for HMs

Approximately 50 European leaders working in the field hematological malignancy gathered at the London Takeda offices on 23 -24 November 2017 for the HARMONY Workshop on the Definition of Meaningful Outcomes for HMs.

Objectives of the Workshop were to brainstorm, exchange and generate ideas regarding a list of outcomes relevant for all stakeholders; as well as to initiate a list of outcomes by haematological malignancy and a list of standard core outcomes valid for all haematological malignancy valued by all stakeholders participating in the workshop, for later validation.

HARMONY Partner Takeda hosted the London workshop. The workshop was a result of several months of planning with leaders from Work Package 2 and Work Package 6, focusing on outcome measures that represent the needs of key stakeholders including clinicians, patient groups, HTA bodies, payers and regulatory bodies. The aim of the workshop was to bring together for the first time these different stakeholders into a workshop to brainstorm and generates ideas related to outcome measures and to begin to develop core outcomes sets for each hematological malignancy.

Professor Lars Bullinger and Mr Jan Geissler opened the meeting, focusing on outcomes measures from the perspective of clinicians and patients. Invited speakers included Prof Paula Williamson, University of Liverpool, who presented learnings from the COMET initiative and Prof Sam Salek, University of Hertfordshire, who presented key outcomes from the patients’ perspective on development of a patient reported outcome measure specific to hematological malignancies. Other presentations were from Dr Katy Harrison from NICE, UK and Dr Simone Werner from Bayer, Germany. Amongst the attendees were several key opinion leaders and six European lead patient advocates representing multiple myeloma, acute lymphocytic leukemia, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, myelodysplatic syndrome, and pediatric hematological malignancies.

As a result, several steps were outlined for each hematological malignancy group who plan their next face to face meetings at the European Hematological Association (EHA) meeting in Stockholm in June 2018. Before then several meetings will be going ahead within disease area groups to continue the work on core outcome sets started at this workshop in London.

Patients diagnosed with hematologic malignancies need help: by using big data and working with multiple stakeholders, HARMONY aims to address urgent unmet needs of patients. With big data there is potential to identify novel pathways for drug development, facilitate drug development and accelerate the “bench-to-bedside” process. HARMONY can ultimately empower clinicians, policy makers and payers to improve decision-making and optimize care for patients with hematological malignancies. Would you like to be kept informed? Subscribe to our mailing list.

Public-private partnership for Big Data in Hematology

HARMONY and HARMONY PLUS are funded through the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), Europe's largest public-private initiative aiming to speed up the development of better and safer medicines for patients. Funding is received from the IMI 2 Joint Undertaking and is listed under grant agreement for HARMONY No. 116026 and grant agreement for HARMONY PLUS No. 945406. This Joint Undertaking receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA).