electroCore CEO highlights the importance of working with stakeholders when launching new technologies

Nov 26 2014

JP Errico, founder and CEO of electroCore, speaking at The FT Global Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Conference in London last week, emphasized the importance of working with each of the major stakeholders, i.e., patients and their advocates, key opinion-leading physicians, and decision-makers within the payor community at the earliest opportunity, particularly in regards to innovative and disruptive technology such as electroCore’s non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation (nVNS).

While participating on a panel exploring “Navigating The Next Frontiers of Medicine” JP explained how electroCore has undertaken detailed discussions with all three groups, and focused special attention on the critical importance of engaging with payors, explaining how electroCore is working across Europe and the US to ensure payors understand the benefits of their non-invasive neurostimulation technology, and the clinical and financial implications of their new treatment option.

JP elaborated after the conference:

By exposing the stakeholders, and in particular those who determine the placement of new therapies into the continuum of care through their reimbursement approval processes, to the potential therapeutic and economic impact of non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation, we believe that all participants can make informed and rational decisions. In the case of electroCore’s practical, patient-centric delivery technology of this broadly applicable neuromodulation therapy, the potential to dramatically alter the equation for managing chronic conditions from primary headache, to gastric motility disorders, to anxiety and depression has been appealing to healthcare providers, who are overwhelmed by the time demands associated with caring for these patients, and payors that are burdened with paying for treatments that are typically less than effective.

Errico further emphasized the importance of big data as a crucial resource to be mined as part of the dialogue. “Big datasets are like natural resources; they are most valuable when extracted and purified. The value of big data is realized through the quality of our queries. Intelligent interrogation provides the novel and useful insights that are derived from big data.”

Returning to his original point, Errico challenged the audience and the rest of the panel to continue building coalitions among medical experts, the patient advocacy groups, and the payors based on hard data. “It is undeniable that innovation has to be a pivotal piece of the solution to the problem of our escalating costs of healthcare. But just as innovation, such as our non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation, holds the promise of safer and more effective patient care, new treatments can be disruptive to markets. Potential disruption can be intimidating, and so gaining broad support from all interested parties is critical to realizing the promise of innovation, and that support only comes when the truth is socialized through honest sharing and critical review of real world data.”

electroCore has developed non-invasive Vagus Nerve Stimulation (nVNS) self-administered therapies for the treatment of multiple conditions in neurology, psychiatry, gastroenterology and respiratory fields. The company’s initial focus is on the treatment of primary headaches (migraine and cluster headache), and the associated chronic co-morbidities of gastric motility, psychiatric, sleep, and pain disorders that drive disproportionately large direct and indirect costs within the healthcare system and society.