Medaffcon Presented Insights from Finnish Real-World Data at European Lung Cancer Congress
Medaffcon's European Lung Cancer Congress (ELCC) poster showcased key findings from a recent study on non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
“We always provide the customer with a solution to their problem”
“Always at the cutting edge of progress and constantly developing”, could be the motto of Medaffcon. What are the preconditions for success? Managing Director Jarmo Hahl explains what Medaffcon’s service entity consists of and what makes Medaffcon an excellent partner for their customers.
Tell us briefly what Medaffcon does.
We provide research and expert services for the pharmaceutical industry and social and healthcare actors. We assess health economic effectiveness and efficiency, conduct research based on health data and develop methods and manners utilised in the research.
What is special about what Medaffcon provides for a customer?
A solution to their problem. In addition to us providing the solution, we can also deliver it.
A customer has our solid expertise at their disposal, which decreases their worries. We understand the industry and the challenges of the customer, which enables the customer to advance with our help.
With regard to possibilities, we are honest. Our activities are always transparent.
Sometimes, a solution is something else than the customer first requested or expected. For example, a customer may have interpreted authority requirements incorrectly. Sometimes, a customer has deficient knowledge of what is possible. Thanks to our experience in different types of situations and challenges being inevitably more extensive than the customer’s, we can often think up and pinpoint better solutions than the original idea.
Medaffcon can produce all the necessary data for a customer. How does it benefit the customer?
We are a one-stop shop. A customer has the knowledge of our entire company at their disposal and can sleep soundly knowing everything is under control.
Our services in access and medical fields are comprehensive. Out of typical services directed at the pharmaceutical industry, we only lack registration and clinical trials, which require specific expertise and constitute entities different from our core fields of specialty.
We approach issues in a multiprofessional and multidisciplinary manner. Our employees include experts in health economics, medicine, natural sciences, data sciences and pharmacy.
How does Medaffcon ensure that it is qualified and able to produce the most recent and useful data for its customers?
We are always at the cutting edge of progress. We follow the development and also bring it forward ourselves. Our strong networks help: if we are uncertain about something, we pick up the phone and ask. One can find information, if one knows where and whom to ask.
We aim at being first at everything – and we have been. We conducted the first commercial biobank study in Finland, we were involved in the first process of conditional reimbursement and among the first in Findata applications.
Everyone needs to step out of their chamber for a while, including us. Not everything can be absorbed by reading official documents.
Could you give some examples of what Medaffcon’s service entity includes?
The customer and their needs constitute the starting point of all our activities. Our experts help to solve challenges in the life cycle of a medicinal – or other health technology – product related to market access and remaining on the market. Hence, we are involved in ensuring that a medicine or a treatment is available at the right time for the right patients.
Related to this, we conduct studies based on real-world evidence, health-economic modelling, price and reimbursement applications, documentation for assessment processes, interactive tools, risk-sharing models and related expert resourcing, consultation and training.
We work extensively already before market access or market authorisation in order to enable the customer to provide decision-makers with the best available evidence to support decisions, e.g. related to current treatment alternatives and results as well as costs. And the work continues as we receive information of the intervention in the market and it can be demonstrated how treatments, treatment results and costs develop.
We combine pharmaceutical and health economic perspectives. Our substantive and procedural knowledge is of high-quality and wide range.
Last but not least: We have a strong and comprehensive cooperation network in the pharmaceutical industry, healthcare, academia and research community. We know where and when to receive information when we need it.
How would you describe the expertise of Medaffcon?
I could list it like this:
- Knowledge of the market and customers
- Extremely competent staff
- Solution-oriented operational model
- Very strong networks
We have a 13-year experience as a company, which means we have been able to gather knowledge and competence. We have got acquainted with the Finnish market and customers, i.e., pharmaceutical companies.
The expertise of our staff is wide-ranging and has naturally developed enormously along the years. As we gain new employees, we make sure they are introduced to and learn our way of working. Our more experienced employees are key actors in this. The entire office always supports an individual employee.
The solution-oriented operational model means that we not only provide a certain service but always come up with a solution to our customers’ problems. We have also noted that our customers appreciate our solution proposals.
We never sell something that does not help the customer. If needed, we are frank in saying that an operational method is not rational. For example, if we think that pricing is poor, we say that.
Our networks are extremely extensive and cannot be over-emphasised. We also have active contacts with the authorities.
What do customers say about Medaffcon?
The main message is that we provide what we promise in the agreed schedule. The quality is often better than the customers expected, even if the expectations were high.
We conducted a customer survey last spring. The results revealed that we can identify our strengths and develop them, while gaining new ones. Someone responded that we do not promise too much but keep to the results of an analysis completed on the basis of best available knowledge and to facts. Our networking skills were also praised.
A respondent had received their best RWE experiences from Medaffcon. Our extensive experience in observational studies and the generally extensive service supply for pharmaceutical companies were appreciated.
What sort of a significance does customer feedback have?
Customers are our most important resource. We have a humble approach towards the feedback of our customers, and we aim at improving our activities constantly. If and when we receive feedback and wishes about developing our activities, we listen and always take it seriously. This is why we request, sometimes persistently, feedback from our customers.
Of course, we are also happy to receive positive feedback that encourages and motivates, demonstrating that we have done things right.
