Digital Pharma: Amgen’s online village
pharmafile | June 16, 2010 | News story | Medical Communications | Amgen, ITP, community, disease awareness campaigns
Amgen has launched an online community for European healthcare professionals, patients and carers affected by autoimmune disease immune thrombycytopenia.
Styled as a village community, complete with post office, cinema and council, the company says ITPvillage.com is the first dedicated virtual community for immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) patients.
“Amgen are committed to improving the lives of patients, not just in terms of the products that we develop, but also in the way we support our patients and those who care for them,” said Georg Kreuzbauer, medical director, international development at Amgen International.
“With ITPvillage.com, we have developed a centralised resource that provides information to everyone impacted by ITP. The website content is validated by leading ITP experts from around the globe and will be updated regularly, based on the requirements of its users.”
The website will provide “a unique portal that is unlike anything else currently available, in terms of its design, depth of information and the experience it offers users,” the company added.
Currently only available in English, Amgen plans to translate some of its content into several other European languages in the future.
Upon entering the website, users can avail themselves of the services of a village ‘concierge’, who offers assistance on navigating through site features that include:
• A library with background information, lifestyle advice, publications and support for living with or managing ITP
• A cinema with a choice of short films for healthcare professionals and the general public that will cover patient stories, platelets and ITP itself
• A post office allows users to post any questions they may have about ITP to be answered by authoritative sources, as well as providing important information about the disease
• A café that offers news and answers to questions sent submitted via the village’s post office
• A station, which functions as a small link directory for ITP resources such as dailystrength.org and patient.co.uk.
There is also an ITP Village Council, which consists of European consultants who specialise in ITP and can help provide information and advice to visitors.
Amgen’s orphan drug to treat ITP Nplate (romiplostim) was approved in Europe in February 2009 for splenectomised adult chronic ITP patients who are refractory to other treatments, such as corticosteroids or immunoglobulins
Meanwhile a rival ITP drug, GlaxoSmithKline’s Revolade (eltrombopag), won European approval in March this year, but just last week was rejected by NICE. The cost-effectiveness body’s draft ruling said the drug’s benefits were not clear enough to allow its use by the NHS.
An estimated 50,000 adult patients in the European Union are affected by ITP, which is a serious autoimmune disorder characterised by low platelet counts in the blood (thrombocytopenia) that can lead to serious bleeding events, such as brain haemorrhage.
Dominic Tyer is web editor for Pharmafocus and InPharm.com and the author of the Digital Pharma blog He can be contacted via email, Twitter or LinkedIn.
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