Giving psoriasis a voice

Glob­al research, con­duct­ed by the LEO Inno­va­tion Lab and the Hap­pi­ness Research Insti­tute, found that 37 per cent of the two mil­lion peo­ple liv­ing with pso­ri­a­sis in the UK are liv­ing in mis­ery, while soci­etal under­stand­ing of its debil­i­tat­ing impact remains poor.

Pso­ri­a­sis costs the UK econ­o­my £1.07 bil­lion a year in lost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and its suf­fer­ers have ele­vat­ed risks of car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease, dia­betes, obe­si­ty and a range of immune sys­tem con­di­tions, facts that can be over­looked when pri­ori­tis­ing ser­vices and approach­es to care.

GPs pro­vide more than 13 mil­lion con­sul­ta­tions for skin con­di­tions a year at a cost to the NHS of £723 mil­lion, yet it is rarely an area of strate­gic focus and GPs may have spent less than two weeks of their med­ical school train­ing learn­ing about its intri­ca­cies.

But a groundswell of aca­d­e­m­ic opin­ion and an increas­ing­ly loud­er patient voice are aim­ing to move pso­ri­a­sis out of the shad­ows and into a clear­er light where its phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al and finan­cial bur­den can be ful­ly appre­ci­at­ed, and sig­nif­i­cant advances in treat­ment in recent years can be more eas­i­ly con­nect­ed to patients in need.

One third of peo­ple with pso­ri­a­sis have not had an annu­al review with their GP for five years

The press­ing chal­lenge is to pro­mote greater aware­ness across soci­ety and health­care, par­tic­u­lar­ly where there are exist­ing myths and mis­con­cep­tions, for exam­ple that pso­ri­a­sis is con­ta­gious. Insights gath­ered by LEO Phar­ma, a pio­neer­ing med­ical der­ma­tol­ogy com­pa­ny, detail the wide-rang­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion peo­ple liv­ing with skin con­di­tions can expe­ri­ence. Some have been ordered out of pub­lic swim­ming pools and one per­son even suf­fered the embar­rass­ment of see­ing the next cus­tomer at a cash machine clean­ing the key­board with a ster­ile wipe.

“Many peo­ple are affect­ed in their per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al lives by der­ma­to­log­i­cal con­di­tions, but they are often seen as ‘just skin con­di­tions’ when, in fact, the con­di­tions are so much more,” says Dr Sathish Kol­li, med­ical direc­tor of LEO Phar­ma, which is backed by decades of research and devel­op­ment in med­ical der­ma­tol­ogy and patient advo­ca­cy. “For exam­ple, pso­ri­a­sis is an immune medi­at­ed con­di­tion that is asso­ci­at­ed with a num­ber of comor­bidi­ties, which may require spe­cial­ist help.

“One of the sad­dest aspects that peo­ple liv­ing with pso­ri­a­sis face is that many are poor­ly served, which con­spires to make them resigned to their con­di­tion and not seek help, includ­ing holis­tic care from a health­care pro­fes­sion­al when they need it. One third of peo­ple with pso­ri­a­sis have not had an annu­al review with their GP for five years.”

LEO Phar­ma has more than 80 prod­uct labels across the UK and Ire­land, and its robust pipeline includes top­i­cal, bio­log­i­cal and oral treat­ments. LEO Phar­ma is help­ing 76 mil­lion patients in 130 coun­tries and aims to reach 125 mil­lion peo­ple by 2025. The com­pa­ny, which rein­vests 18 per cent of rev­enue in R&D, is a whol­ly owned foun­da­tion, giv­ing it the free­dom to put patients, not share­hold­ers, first. Some of these patients are play­ing a sig­nif­i­cant role in shar­ing their per­son­al insights to sup­port the devel­op­ment of new resources and ther­a­pies with LEO Phar­ma.

“We are very proud of our Voic­es in Part­ner­ship advi­so­ry pro­gramme that puts the patient voice at the heart of every­thing we do,” says Geral­dine Mur­phy, vice pres­i­dent, clus­ter Europe North of LEO Phar­ma. “We lis­ten to what they say about liv­ing with their con­di­tion, what they need to live well and how they have adapt­ed their lives, and include them in all stages of our deci­sion-mak­ing. We work to make their lives bet­ter with effec­tive treat­ments and devel­op­ing aware­ness around the impact of pso­ri­a­sis and atopic der­mati­tis.”

The scale of the prob­lem was iden­ti­fied by an Asso­ci­a­tion of the British Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Indus­try Der­ma­tol­ogy ini­tia­tive, found­ed in 2014 by six phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies that seek to col­lab­o­rate with peo­ple and organ­i­sa­tions across der­ma­tol­ogy.

LEO Phar­ma is one of the com­pa­nies and chaired a task force that pro­duced a report in 2018, which aimed to address the imbal­ance in care of peo­ple liv­ing with skin con­di­tions. It con­clud­ed  that der­ma­tol­ogy is a “missed oppor­tu­ni­ty to realise pro­duc­tiv­i­ty gains and bet­ter results for patients”. Addi­tion­al­ly, a PSO What? expert task force report from LEO Phar­ma and the Patients Asso­ci­a­tion in 2017 also called for holis­tic pso­ri­a­sis care, reg­u­lar reviews and screen­ing for comor­bidi­ties to improve patient out­comes.

“The out­look for peo­ple with skin con­di­tions is improv­ing, but there is still some way to go to reduce stig­ma and cre­ate sys­tems where patients can get the treat­ment and sup­port they need and deserve,” Dr Kol­li con­cludes.

LEO Phar­ma is com­mit­ted to increas­ing aware­ness of the real­i­ties of liv­ing with skin con­di­tions, dri­ving pos­i­tive change and high­light­ing the impor­tance of seek­ing reg­u­lar, at least annu­al, holis­tic reviews.

LEO Phar­ma is a pio­neer­ing med­ical der­ma­tol­ogy com­pa­ny. For more infor­ma­tion about LEO Phar­ma vis­it: www.leo-pharma.co.uk

This arti­cle was spon­sored by LEO Phar­ma