Conversations we’re expecting to hear at ISPOR Europe 2025: Can patient-centered collaboration move from aspiration to action in evidence generation and decision-making?
ISPOR Europe 2025, the leading conference for health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) organized by ISPOR — The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research, will take place in Glasgow (November 9–12, 2025) under the theme “Powering Value and Access Through Patient-Centered Collaboration.” The meeting comes at a time of significant change across the evidence and access landscape, as developments such as the EU HTA Regulation and the growing use of AI in evidence generation reshape how value is assessed and decisions are made amid ongoing geopolitical and economic pressures.
In this “Conversations we’re expecting to hear at ISPOR Europe 2025” series, The Evidence Base explores several key themes likely to feature prominently throughout the meeting – each reflecting an evolving dialogue among researchers, policymakers, payers, and patients.
In this first feature, we highlight sessions exploring the evolving role of patient-centeredness in health technology assessment (HTA) and its growing influence on value and access decisions. Patient-centered collaboration sits at the core of ISPOR Europe 2025’s theme, yet it remains one of the field’s most challenging goals to realize in practice. Throughout this year’s program, sessions will examine how patient perspectives are being integrated into evidence generation, from preference studies and experience data to the use of digital health technologies, and how these insights can meaningfully inform HTA, regulatory decision-making, and access discussions.
Why these sessions matter: Despite broad agreement on the value of patient engagement and including the patient voice, translating participation into measurable influence on evidence and policy remains inconsistent. Understanding what truly works and hearing the perspectives from different stakeholders will be key to ensuring that “patient-centered” becomes more than a guiding principle and starts shaping decisions that directly affect care, access, and outcomes.
Selected sessions
Patient engagement in healthcare investments—a promise or a practice?
Date and time: Monday November 10, 2025, 8:30am – 9:45am
Moderator: Joep Muijrers (Gilde Healthcare Partners, The Netherlands)
Speakers: Carole Longson (UK), Steffen Thirstrup (European Medicines Agency, The Netherlands), David H-U Haerry (Positivrat, Switzerland) and Luc Truyen (Argenx, USA)
Opening ISPOR Europe 2025, this plenary will set the tone for discussions on how patient engagement can move from aspiration to measurable impact. Speakers representing regulators, industry, and patient organizations will explore what meaningful involvement looks like today, what barriers persist, and what priorities must be addressed over the next five years to ensure engagement influences, not just accompanies, healthcare investment decisions.
Date and time: Monday November 10, 2025, 10:15am – 11:15am
Moderator: Danny Yeh (Aesara, USA)
Speakers: Gunes Sevinc (Ardea Outcomes, Canada), Hannah Staunton (Roche Products Ltd, UK) and Dalia Dawoud (Cairo University, Egypt)
In this workshop, experts, including speakers offering industry and HTA perspectives, will explore how personalized endpoints and patient-centric approaches can be effectively designed, implemented, and integrated into clinical trials and HTAs. As healthcare systems increasingly emphasize patient relevance, the session will examine how traditional endpoints often fail to capture individual experiences, particularly in rare, neurodevelopmental, and chronic conditions. Speakers will present practical tools and real-world examples such as the Goal Attainment Scale (GAS) to demonstrate how personalized outcomes can reflect patient priorities, quantify treatment benefit, and inform value assessment.
Patient preference evidence in health technology assessment: what do we really know?
Date and time: Monday November 10, 2025, 10:15am – 11:15am
Moderator: Brett Hauber (Pfizer, USA)
Speakers: Verity Watson (RTI Health Solutions, UK), David Meads (University of Leeds, UK) and Evi Germeni (University of Glasgow, UK)
Building on the conversation about relevance and measurement, this issue panel will examine what works, and what doesn’t, in using patient preference evidence (PPE) to inform HTA. Despite growing interest, PPE has had limited influence on reimbursement decisions to date. Speakers will review current proposals and highlight opportunities where preference data can add value, such as quantifying benefit–risk trade-offs, capturing treatment process preferences, and addressing gaps left by conventional methods. Drawing on real-world examples, including NICE and PBAC submissions, the panel will explore successes, challenges, and practical pathways to better integrate PPE into HTA decision-making through discussion and audience interaction.
Fostering the next generation: incorporating the patient voice into decision making
Date and time: Monday November 10, 2025, 11:45am – 12:45pm
Moderator: Dominique Seo (University of Maryland, Baltimore, USA)
Speakers: Eberechukwu Onukwugha (University of Maryland, Baltimore School of Pharmacy, USA), Emesomi S Obaze (National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics, Ireland) and Elise Schoefs (KU Leuven, Belgium)
Expanding the discussion to capacity building, this forum session will explore how patient engagement can be strengthened across advocacy, funding, and research, highlighting how meaningful collaboration can improve the relevance and impact of evidence generation. Speakers will discuss ways to build capacity for patient involvement, embed patient perspectives throughout study design, and develop structured training to support the next generation of patient advocates. The session will also examine how funders and institutions can create environments that prioritize patient partnership from the outset. The discussion will conclude with practical strategies to make patient engagement a routine, measurable, and sustainable part of healthcare decision-making.
Partnering for progress: advancing patient-centered evidence in HEOR
Date and time: Monday November 10, 2025, 11:45am – 12:45pm
Moderator: Alan Balch (Patient Advocate Foundation and National Patient Advocate Foundation, USA)
Speakers: Maria Dutarte (European Patients’ Academy on Therapeutic Innovation – EUPATI, The Netherlands), Angie Botto-van Bemden (Musculoskeletal Research International, USA) and Derick Mitchell (Ireland)
Complementing earlier discussions on engagement, this forum session will showcase ISPOR’s own ongoing efforts to advance meaningful patient engagement HEOR. Attendees will hear about the evolution of ISPOR’s Patient Engagement in HEOR Initiative, from early milestones such as the Patient Council and regional roundtables to the recent Patient-Centered Research Summit and the new Patient-Centered Evidence track at ISPOR Europe 2025. The discussion will highlight how lived experience, co-created research, and shared decision-making are shaping evidence generation, value frameworks, and policy, marking a more inclusive future for patient engagement in HEOR.
Patient experience data for evidence generation to support regulatory and access decision making
Date and time: Monday November 10, 2025, 1:45pm – 2:45pm
Moderator: Steffen Thirstrup (European Medicines Agency, The Netherlands)
Speakers: Denise Umuhire (European Medicines Agency, The Netherlands) and Carla Torre (University of Lisbon, Portugal)
Earlier this month, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) released a draft reflection paper encouraging developers and other stakeholders to plan, generate, and submit patient experience data (PED) throughout the medicine lifecycle, while engaging early with regulators on methods and applications. In this highly anticipated session, speakers will discuss key elements of the paper and ongoing EMA efforts to describe how PED is incorporated into marketing authorization and extension of indication submissions. The panel will also offer their perspectives on current practices and explore possible next steps for advancing the use of PED in regulatory decision-making.
Beyond regulatory approval: making patient experience central to HTA decision-making
Date and time: Monday November 10, 2025, 5:00pm – 6:00pm
Moderator: Martin Rost (AESARA, USA)
Speakers: Robyn Carson (AbbVie, USA), Patrick K Hopkinson (PHTA Consulting, UK) and Indranil Bagchi (GSK, USA)
As European healthcare systems move toward more patient-centered, value-based care, the traditional evidence hierarchy focused on randomized controlled trials is being re-evaluated. This issue panel will explore the shift from “evidence of efficacy” to “evidence of value,” highlighting the growing role of patient experience and preference data in pricing, access, and HTA decisions. Using real-world case studies, speakers will examine why strong patient-reported outcomes often influence regulatory approvals but not HTA outcomes, and discuss practical strategies to better integrate patient-centered evidence, strengthen payer relevance, and enhance the overall impact of PED on decision-making.
Patient-centric approaches when using digital health technology in drug development
Date and time: Tuesday November 11, 2025, 10:15am – 11:15am
Moderator: Sarah Ernst (Sanofi, USA)
Speakers: Marie Mc Carthy (Novartis, Ireland), Christine Guo (Ametris, USA) and Stephen Charles Allen (Independent Patient Advocate, UK)
Digital health technologies (DHTs) are transforming how PED are collected and applied in drug development. This issue panel will explore the practical and methodological challenges of designing patient-centered trials that use DHT-derived clinical outcome assessments (COAs). Discussion will focus on selecting appropriate endpoints, demonstrating usability, and incorporating patient input to ensure digital measures capture the outcomes that matter most to patients. Panelists representing patient, industry, and regulatory perspectives will share lessons learned and strategies for ensuring DHTs enhance, rather than complicate, patient-focused evidence generation.
Beyond good intentions: keeping patient-centricity patient-centric
Date and time: Tuesday November 11, 2025, 3:15pm – 4:15pm
Moderator: Elizabeth (Nicki) Bush (OPEN Health, USA)
Speakers: Robyn Carson (AbbVie, USA), Kathleen A Boyd (University of Glasgow, UK) and Neil Bertelsen (Independent Consultant, USA)
Building on the momentum from earlier sessions, this symposium will critically reflect on efforts to embed patient perspectives in medical product development and access. Through lessons learned from both successes and shortfalls, panelists from industry, HTA, and patient representatives will share strategies for ensuring that engagement remains authentic, sustainable, and centered on patient needs rather than procedural compliance.
Date and time: Wednesday November 12, 2025, 10:00am – 11:00am
Moderator: Ruairi O'Donnell (Cencora, UK)
Speakers: Matteo Scarabelli (EFPIA, Belgium), Antonella M Cardone (Cancer Patients Europe, Belgium) and Justin Doan (Pfizer, USA)
The European Union’s Health Technology Assessment Regulation (EU HTAR) has brought new opportunities, and challenges, for embedding patient perspectives into joint scientific consultations (JSCs) and joint clinical assessments (JCAs). This issue panel will examine how patient involvement can be structured to ensure transparency, representativeness, and meaningful impact. The discussion will address practical questions on managing confidentiality, handling conflicts of interest, and improving access to understandable information through plain language summaries. Speakers representing policy, patient organizations, and industry will share insights on integrating patient-relevant outcomes and experiences into HTA procedures, offering concrete recommendations to strengthen the legitimacy and inclusiveness of patient engagement under the new EU HTA framework.
RWE in European Healthcare Decision Making—What's in it for Patients?
Date and time: Wednesday November 12, 2025, 11:30am – 12:45am
Moderator: Karen Facey (University of Edinburgh, UK)
Speakers: Maria Dutarte (European Patients’ Academy on Therapeutic Innovation – EUPATI, The Netherlands), Pall Jonsson (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence – NICE, UK), Sofie Gustafsson (Pfizer, Sweden) and Renske Los (Erasmus MC, The Netherlands)
Bringing the discussions of ISPOR Europe 2025 full circle, the closing plenary will focus on how real-world evidence (RWE) is shaping healthcare decision-making across Europe – not only for systems and stakeholders, but most importantly for patients. The session will examine how initiatives such as DARWIN EU and the European Health Data Space (EHDS) are enabling more connected, patient-centered evidence generation, supported by cross-border collaboration and advances in AI. With perspectives from EUPATI and NICE, the discussion will explore what meaningful, measurable success looks like from a patient standpoint and how RWE can deliver tangible improvements in access, safety, and everyday care.
Coverage by The Evidence Base
Our editorial team will be on site in Glasgow to cover some of these key sessions, share daily highlights and speak with presenters and partners. Follow The Evidence Base on LinkedIn for live updates throughout the meeting. For exclusive post-event analysis and session round-ups, register on our site to receive regular updates.
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