The PREFER project will deliver an overview and evaluation of preference elicitation methods to be applied in the entire drug life cycle, i.e. in the early stages of identifying medical needs, in clinical testing, to guide decisions on reimbursement and to make decisions on withdrawal of drugs from the market. A broad array of (combinations of) patient preference methods will be tested prospectively in a large number of case studies. The availability of large patient cohorts will enable to test new methods or deviations from existing methods in a randomized manner, by comparing well-known methods with newer ones. The use of simulation studies will both contribute to smarter design of case studies and to exploring the sensitivity of outcomes of preference studies. Based on discussions with a broad representation of stakeholders e.g. patients, patient organisations, regulatory authorities, HTA bodies and reimbursement agencies, suitable methods will be tested and their contributions to improved decision making will be discussed in recommendations adapted to the needs of all relevant stakeholders. The recommendations from PREFER are expected to lead to changed practices, in that industry will routinely assess whether a preference study would add value at key decision points in the medicinal product life cycle and, if so, implement patient-preference elicitation studies according to the PREFER project recommendations. The PREFER consortium consist of 16 industry partners and 16 academic and SME members including representation from academia, patient organizations, HTA bodies, reimbursement agencies, and project management.

This proposal seeks to build on the mobile application (app) functionality delivered through the original WEB-RADR project to expand access to the platform and the reach of the information contained within it. It will achieve this by making the functionality available through application programming interfaces (APIs), meaning that third party organisations will be able to embed WEB-RADR platform functionality into their own systems, applications and websites. An important component to this will be a terminology/classification mapping activity involving the three core healthcare terminology owners; MedDRA MSSO, SNOMED International and WHO. The mapping will facilitate communication between regulatory and healthcare databases by establishing mapping protocols and delivering an initial mapping between a subset of key pharmacovigilance terms. The project has established use cases and adopters for the proposed functionality through the networks established through the original WEB-RADR delivery, and has a diverse range of partners keen to utilise different aspects of the proposed solutions including regulatory authorities, health charities and system providers.