Women’s health –
managing the menopause

For this month’s cover story, PME spoke to Marci English, Vice President and Head of BioPharma Development at Astellas, about the importance of new treatments for menopause symptoms and addressing the unmet need in midlife women’s health. One of the main issues is the stigma surrounding menopause and how that affects patient outcomes.

As Marci says: “By 2025, an estimated 1.1 billion women worldwide will have experienced menopause or be postmenopausal. Despite the tremendous number of people impacted, conversations about menopause are often limited because of the stigma surrounding it. The resistance to openly discuss the menopause experience may be due to embarrassment or religious or cultural norms. There is also a common misperception among the public that because menopause is a natural part of ageing, nothing can be done about its symptoms, which often leads women to suffer in silence. These stigmas may lead women to avoid talking to their doctor or seeking care for their menopause symptoms.” Read more on page 18.

With a continuing focus on the importance of new treatments for rare diseases – raising awareness, listening to patients, making a difference – in this month’s issue we spoke to Lorna Pender, Global Patient Engagement Lead at Clinigen, about the treatment options available and the barriers that are hindering access. She spoke about how Early Access Programmes (EAPs) work and the role they play in the treatment of rare diseases.

As Lorna says: “In a nutshell, EAPs are a route or pathway for people to access unlicensed treatment. They are usually operated because there’s a population of patients with a life-threatening or seriously debilitating medical condition that have no available treatment options. In other cases, there are treatments available that have been attempted but not been successful, or there are treatments that have been approved in different countries but not the patients’ country.”

We also have an article from Danny Buckland on behaviour change and one on drug development for Alzheimer’s. I hope you enjoy this issue!

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