Overview
HPP has been leading research and stakeholder engagement on how to integrate radioligand therapy into cancer care since 2019. We have helped to significantly advance the understanding of radioligand therapy, create lasting multidisciplinary stakeholder alliances, and inspire actions from clinical societies and regulatory bodies to overcome barriers to patient access in many countries.
Dr Darren Leaning, Consultant Clinical Oncologist and Clinical Director, The James Cook University Hospital; Inaugural chair, UK MRT Consortium
The challenge
Radioligand therapy is an innovative type of cancer treatment that has great potential to improve outcomes for people with many types of cancer, but there are several barriers that hinder its integration into clinical practice. These include unfamiliarity with the approach (among healthcare professionals and the public), limited workforce capacity and infrastructure, complexity in the supply chain and a lack of standardised protocols.
We were asked by our client to devise a framework for implementation that would inspire policymakers to drive health system change so that all people who could benefit from radioligand therapy could receive it in a timely and appropriate manner. This work spanned multiple countries, including the UK, USA, South Korea, UAE, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Taiwan.
What we achieved
- Since we began working in this area in 2019, we have established ourselves as a leading voice on the implementation of radioligand therapy, supported by prominent experts in oncology, nuclear medicine, nursing and patient advocacy.
- We developed the first-of-its-kind Radioligand Therapy Readiness Assessment Framework. This publicly accessible tool allows stakeholders anywhere in the world to conduct a situation analysis to gauge their health system’s readiness for radioligand therapy integration. We applied the framework to the US and the UK, building findings into policy blueprints for those countries. The framework was also applied in South Korea.
- This work led to a set of key performance indicators to help countries quantify readiness for radioligand therapy, with examples of good practice hosted in an online hub of case studies.
- Our work has contributed to enhanced recognition of radioligand therapy as an innovative pillar of cancer care both in Europe and internationally, and stimulated multidisciplinary discussions around its integration into care.
- In the UK, we supported the British Nuclear Medicine Society to develop the Molecular Radiotherapy Consortium, the first multidisciplinary alliance of patient associations and healthcare professionals focused on radioligand therapy.
- Our UK-focused work was a finalist at the 2023 Communiqué Awards in the Excellence in Communicating and Using Data category.
- The national calls to action we developed have helped our client’s country teams build their internal knowledge on radioligand therapy and helped them open doors to lasting stakeholder networks in their respective markets.
Core resources
Animation
What is radioligand therapy?
Advocacy toolkit
Radiopharmaceuticals patient advocacy toolkit
Website
healthsystemreadiness.comProject information
This work has been funded by Novartis and Advanced Accelerator Applications, with additional support from Curium and Nordic Nanovector in the initial stages.
Please see the individual project pages for more information.
Get in touch
If you want to find out more about our work in radioligand therapy or health system readiness more broadly, contact Eleanor Wheeler, Director of Consulting, Oncology.
