A word of acknowledgement from the coordinators

2022-05-04

PREFER has not only accomplished everything that we set out to do in the beginning. Significant contributions to the science of bringing patient perspectives to the centre of medical decision making, with methodological rigor based on close-up stake holder input. Large clinical case studies in several disease areas and in multiple countries with innovative insights from psychology and the field of educational tools. Providing detailed recommendations for anyone wanting to set up a preference study in their organization. 

More than 40 publications in peer-reviewed international journals, and more to come. On top of that we took on the demanding task to seek a qualification opinion from EMA, based on a framework for conducting preference studies, detailed points to consider when selecting one of the five most prominent methods and, above all, an invitation to the world to continue the research and work with those research questions we identified but didn’t have time to explore in full. In a very important sense PREFER was a beginning of a journey that we hope many others now will join.
 
The PREFER consortium is big, with dedicated representatives from industry across the globe, academic partners drawing on their developed academic networks, patient organisations representing many disease areas, regulators giving guidance and feed back, representatives from HTA suggesting how to explore patient preferences in their decision making, a scientific advisory board scrutinizing our work and providing substantial input, and an ethical advisory board keeping us in the right direction. It is impossible to single out any individual with name. PREFER has been a collective joint undertaking with all individuals doing their significant part.
 
For this we thank everyone of you warmly, and, rest assured, we will stay in touch and continue. To quote Churchill:
 
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
 
Conny Berlin and Mats Hansson 

Last modified: 2021-11-10