Our Initiatives

As we start to develop a new therapy, our first objective is to understand what it’s like to live with the disease the therapy aims to treat. Patients and caregivers know best what it means to live with a disease, so we recognize the need to hear their perspectives, environment and priorities.

When it’s time to test a medicine to make sure it’s safe and effective, we aim to work closely with patients, caregivers and advocates to design clinical trials with their needs and experiences top of mind.

To better communicate our findings, we provide clinical trial participants easy-to-understand summaries of what we learn from the trials. These summaries are available to the public here.

This patient-directed drug development approach will benefit individual patients, patient communities, and public health organizations around the world.

At the heart of our patient-directed approach is the recognition of the essential role caregivers play in our healthcare ecosystem. In 2017, we launched the award-winning Embracing Carers® initiative to raise awareness and advocate for greater support for caregivers globally.

Over the past decade, Embracing Carers® has collaborated with global care organizations to strengthen support systems and build capacity. This includes our ongoing collaboration with the UN Global Initiative on Ageing and Longevity under the auspices of the United Nations, to help develop training modules for caregivers. These resources provide practical guidance on topics such as nutrition, administration of medicines, communication and caregiver well-being.

As an employer, Embracing Carers® has also shaped how we evolve our internal policies, benefits, and workplace practices to better support employees who are balancing care responsibilities. In 2025, we introduced our Global Caregiver Leave Benefit, offering a financially protected 10-day minimum leave to employees globally.

In recognition of our efforts, Embracing Carers was honored to receive the 'At The Heart of Pharma' award at the CPHI Pharma Awards in October 2023. We remain committed to helping create a future where caregivers have greater visibility, resources, and support worldwide. 

EMD Serono regularly carries out medical research to test the safety and efficacy of new and existing medicines.

Through our interactions with patients, we know that the terminology and language used in scientific literature can often be inaccessible and difficult to read, and that such publications do not always include the perspective of patients.

To address this challenge, we collaborate with patients as co-authors on selected scientific publications to ensure the patient voice is meaningfully reflected in how medical results are communicated. Patient authors may contribute individually or on behalf of patient organizations, and their lived experience adds a valuable and unique perspective to the results outlined in the publication. In the same spirit of supporting patient and non-expert understanding and accessibility, EMD Serono also includes Plain Language Summaries (PLS) in congress posters and presentations to promote lay-language understanding. EMD Serono is also developing patient-authored summaries of research articles and has published Phase 3 trial results as standalone PLS articles in scientific literature.

In addition, we issue plain language clinical trial summaries developed with patients as co-authors to communicate important scientific information to patients and caregivers in a clear and easy-to-understand format. These summaries are available to the public here.

We are constantly measuring the impact of these initiatives and looking to further improve them through feedback and insights provided to us by patient organizations, as well as assessing how often our publications are downloaded, read and cited.

Since 2017, patients, patient advocates and caregivers have been invited to provide input on a range of important topics, such as:

• Diversity and inclusion in clinical trials
• Clinical trial awareness
• Communicating science to patients and caregivers
• Lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic
• Patient engagement in the digital age
• How to better address patient needs through better medical education
• Health Equity
• Patient Experience Data
• Developing our organization’s Integrated Patient Engagement (IPE) framework 

The insights gained during our annual face-to-face Patient 360° Summit at our headquarters serve as the driving force behind subsequent Patient 360° projects. This initiative has enabled us to establish a foundation of trust and ongoing dialogue with patients and their caregivers.

October 2025: For the first time in our Boston Seaport Headquarters, we welcomed patient and carer advocates from across the globe to discuss Patient Experience Data, Health Equity and to review our draft Integrated Patient Engagement (IPE) framework, an outcome and action from the Patient 360° Summit the previous year.

November 2024: European, American and Chinese patient advocates joined us in Germany to participate in workshops that helped map our organization’s patient engagement efforts and practices, ultimately identifying gaps and needs. Read more about this P360 Summit here. 

October 2023: We hosted the ‘Patient 360° Summit 2023: Patient of the Future’ at our headquarters in Darmstadt, Germany. The event welcomed patient and carer advocates from the UK, Europe, the US, and China, representing communities in oncology, multiple sclerosis, and fertility. The discussions centered on identifying the future needs and expectations of patients, including greater patient responsibility for their care, a growing demand for holistic care and support, decentralization of care and clinical trials, and advancements in digital innovation such as AI. 

We continuously analyze insights from the Patient 360° Summit and collaborate closely with patients and carers to develop solutions that address identified gaps and needs.