Patient Voices at the Table: Servier's Blueprint for Shared Healthcare Decisions

The traditional model of healthcare is undergoing a profound shift. Today, patients are rightfully taking their place as active partners, shaping treatment decisions, clinical research, and industry priorities.

This evolution was on full display in Shanghai recently, as patient advocates, healthcare professionals, and industry leaders gathered to redefine the future of care.

Among those attending the "Empower Rare Bootcamp," hosted by the Chinese Organization for Rare Disorders (CORD) in late June, was Servier's Chief Patient Officer Nicolas Garnier. His unique perspective is forged from extensive firsthand experience in the healthcare industry, having directly witnessed the escalating importance of patient engagement, both as a patient advocate and as an executive.

Engaging with over 50 advocacy groups during his first visit to the city brought a clear focus to the days ahead. Garnier's goal is to encourage pharmaceutical companies and healthcare stakeholders to not only develop solutions for patients, but to actively work alongside them.

With a PhD in experimental medicine and years of academic research in pediatric oncology, Garnier has spent more than a decade in the pharmaceutical industry, observing a fundamental shift toward greater recognition of the role patients play in shaping healthcare. "Over the past decade, we've moved from a healthcare ecosystem where patients were ultimate beneficiaries, yet without an active role or even a voice, to one where they are active stakeholders," he reflected. "It's still not perfect, but we're moving ever closer to truly including patients as decision-makers."

Servier has implemented a systematic mechanism where Patient Advisory Councils (PACs) are engaged early, even before research work is carried out. These PACs are basically groups of patients, caregivers, or patient representatives with whom the company has deep conversations about patients' needs, preferences, expectations and attitudes.

According to Garnier, patients' perspectives are now being given far greater consideration in healthcare decisions than they were a decade ago.

"We used to have inspirational patient stories about how they fought with diseases, and then we realized it's essential to understand the patient's experience from their own perspective," Garnier said.

The most significant shift, he said, is that these conversations and personal experiences are increasingly being translated into actionable data. "It's still not perfect, but we're getting closer and closer to having patients really included as decision makers," he added.

With the advent of data technologies and smart solutions, Garnier envisions a collaborative future where the companies, decision makers, patient organizations and scientists unite to address regulators' demands for systematic, harmonized and robust patient experience data.

"The rise of data technologies and AI holds immense potential, and we must engage with patients, understand what they need, and then map how digital solution can fulfill those needs. This requires greater commitment to improving not only health literacy but also science and digital literacy," he noted.

This long-term, collaborative vision is embedded in the company's core structure. Servier, an independent international pharmaceutical company governed by a nonprofit foundation, is headquartered in Suresnes, near Paris. While the company allocates nearly 70 percent of its R&D budget to oncology – focusing on digestive cancers, brain tumors, and hematologic cancers – it is equally committed to discovering therapies designed to optimize therapeutic management in rare neurological disorders.

Building on this specific therapeutic focus, in March, Servier China and the CORD announced a partnership to address the unmet medical needs of patients with rare neurological conditions. China, with its vast patient population and rapidly evolving digital health ecosystem, represents both a challenge and a critical testing ground for this patient-centric model.

In China, Garnier met with local patient communities and was moved by their passion and dedication. "I was really impressed by the quality of the presentations and the pioneering spirit of many of those patient advocates who start their own registries, generate their own data, start their own startups and their own research to hopefully try and develop new breakthrough medicines for people with rare disease," he said.

He noted that despite local differences, conversations with patient groups often come back to basic human needs – equal treatment, the desire to be seen, heard and cared for. At the same time, he emphasized that healthcare ecosystems vary greatly, so patient engagement must be tailored to local realities.

"Despite local differences and particularities in different parts of the world, a lot of discussions I had with patient groups are centered around universal human needs, the yearning for equity, and the desire to be seen, heard, and cared for," Garnier shared.

"These are fundamental aspects that transcend the language and geographical differences, and we also need to tailor our approaches according to cultural differences."

Servier collaborated with 177 international patient organizations in 2024-2025 and has set a goal of making patient collaboration a standard part of its work by 2030. The company aims to co-develop all clinical trial protocols with patients, establish Patient Advisory Councils across all therapeutic areas, and create all "beyond-the-pill" digital solutions in partnership with patient communities.

Clearly, it takes coordinated efforts from different parts. "This is not just our commitment, but a call to action from institutions and developers across different fields, because we cannot achieve this alone." Garnier concluded, "Patients speak, we listen, and then we act together. That's our hope."