Astellas Expands Advocacy Engagement with Focused Outreach

Astellas recognizes the crucial role that patient groups play in enhancing and extending the lives of patients. Sponsoring events such as the BIO Patient and Health Advocacy Summit to be held on November 3-4 is a way the Astellas Stakeholder Engagement team is supporting that goal. Astellas’ Stakeholder Engagement team is focused on collaborating with patient advocacy groups with the aim to:

• build and strengthen relationships with stakeholders and influential thought leaders
• elevate the patient voice within Astellas to ensure patient-centric decision making, and
• galvanize collective action among stakeholders to improve patient outcomes, address access challenges, and develop resources for unmet needs.

This approach is in line with the Astellas Way, a set of values that Astellas employees share, which focuses on patients first, ownership, results, openness and integrity.

By supporting patient advocacy groups and organizations that advocate for improved patient care, Astellas works to strengthen the power patients have to influence positive changes in healthcare. In all of the support and funding Astellas provides, we work diligently to maintain the highest levels of transparency and integrity.

Our Stakeholder Engagement team has developed several programs to help facilitate dialogue about the patient journey and connect advocates across various therapeutic areas:

• The Patient Advocates Advisory Committee serves as a confidential sounding board for seeking and evaluating patient feedback regarding healthcare needs and services, strengthening Astellas’ ability to meet the needs of patients.
• Astellas’ annual Patient Advocacy Summit gathers more than 100 of the most influential names in patient advocacy, healthcare and Astellas leaders to discuss the most prevalent issues related to medical innovation and patient access to quality care in the US and Canada.
• Changing Tomorrow Together, an interactive website, stimulates dialogue and creates opportunities to share patient-focused resources and information, inspiration and ideas across the advocacy community.
• Breakfast panel discussions on key topics of interest at the 2016 American Urological Association (AUA) Annual Meeting and the American Society of Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting to provide educational opportunities for advocacy organizations.

At Astellas’ second annual patient advocacy summit in Washington, DC, Margaret Long, Vice President of Business Communications and Stakeholder Engagement said, “We at Astellas want to be seen as your best resource. It’s very important to us as a company that we make this commitment real.”

To learn more about Astellas’ commitment to patient advocacy organizations, visit www.changetogether.com.