Multimorbidity Action Group (MAG)

Call for Experts by Experience

The ABPI is currently looking for two people with direct experience of multimorbidity to join its Multimorbidity Action Group (MAG). ‘Multimorbidity’, or ‘multiple long-term conditions’, refers to the diagnoses of two or more diseases, in the same person, at the same time.

We are asking these individuals to join our MAG and to represent the patient voice alongside NHS clinicians, academic researchers, and pharmaceutical companies.

The ABPI MAG has come together to make an impact in research, clinical care, and treatments, to improve the lives of people living with multiple long-term conditions. We believe that these patients are currently underserved, so we are seeking to make a difference across the NHS and within government towards our vision (see below).

We would like to work with these two experts by experience who would be interested in helping advise and guide our work as we improve the culture and help guide policy development in this area. As members of the ABPI MAG, the two experts by experience will contribute to delivering the group’s 2021 objectives (see below):

MAG 2021 objectives

• Develop policy recommendations for use by the pharmaceutical industry to advocate for improvements for people living with multiple long-term conditions, in the areas of clinical research, medicines development, the regulation of medicines, and the use of medicines.
• Identify what the pharmaceutical industry needs, and how academia, industry and patients can collaborate, in order to develop medicines that treat multiple conditions.
• Support the pharmaceutical industry to engage in research on ‘long-COVID’ in order to better understand the needs of people experiencing this condition.
• Rally ABPI member pharmaceutical companies and other organisations to ensure multiple long-term conditions are included in work to increase diversity in clinical trials.

MAG vision

• Our scientific understanding of multimorbidity is improved and is used to inform patient care and medicines development.
• The research community, from laboratory scientists discovering new drugs to academics studying the social impacts on health, is rewarded for carrying out research in multiple long-term conditions.
• People diagnosed with more than one disease are better represented in clinical trials.
• Multiple long-term conditions are a factor that informs decisions about which medicines are made available on the NHS.
• Clinical practice, from prevention and screening through to prescribing medication, is better equipped to serve people living with multiple conditions.
• The impact of COVID-19 on people living with multiple conditions, and vice versa, is better understood.