The PREFER project will deliver an overview and evaluation of preference elicitation methods to be applied in the entire drug life cycle, i.e. in the early stages of identifying medical needs, in clinical testing, to guide decisions on reimbursement and to make decisions on withdrawal of drugs from the market. A broad array of (combinations of) patient preference methods will be tested prospectively in a large number of case studies. The availability of large patient cohorts will enable to test new methods or deviations from existing methods in a randomized manner, by comparing well-known methods with newer ones. The use of simulation studies will both contribute to smarter design of case studies and to exploring the sensitivity of outcomes of preference studies. Based on discussions with a broad representation of stakeholders e.g. patients, patient organisations, regulatory authorities, HTA bodies and reimbursement agencies, suitable methods will be tested and their contributions to improved decision making will be discussed in recommendations adapted to the needs of all relevant stakeholders. The recommendations from PREFER are expected to lead to changed practices, in that industry will routinely assess whether a preference study would add value at key decision points in the medicinal product life cycle and, if so, implement patient-preference elicitation studies according to the PREFER project recommendations. The PREFER consortium consist of 16 industry partners and 16 academic and SME members including representation from academia, patient organizations, HTA bodies, reimbursement agencies, and project management.

The GetReal Initiative brings together partners from the IMI GetReal project to drive the adoption of tools, methodologies and best practices from IMI GetReal and increase the quality of real-world evidence (RWE) generation in medicines development and regulatory/HTA processes across Europe. We will establish, in Work Package (WP) 1, a Think Tank, a number of Task Forces and a RWE Research Community. The Think Tank will consist of international thought leaders and will discuss, assesses and give recommendations on the opportunities and barriers to the generation, use and acceptability of RWE. They will act as ambassadors for the use of RWE during the project and beyond, enagaging with key stakeholder groups to drive policy debate and facilitate the uptake of the outputs of IMI GetReal and the GetReal Initiative. The GetReal Taskforces will drive the focused development of tangible solutions to the key challenges identified in IMI GetReal and the Think Tank. The initial three task forces will be: (i) Pragmatic Trials (design, operational feasibility and analysis/the GetReal PragMagic tool), (ii) network meta-analysis and benefit risk assessment (incl. the GetReal ADDIS tool) and (iii) Statistical Approaches for enriching RCTs with real-world data. The GetReal Research Community will consist of researchers and organisations active in the field of RWE generation, regulators, HTAs, physicians and patients. The Community will review and comment on any GetReal Initiative guidelines, recommendations or white papers ahead of their finalisation, will have access to all the GetReal tools and outputs, receive regular newsletters and receive invitations to attend stakeholder events. The project will also invest in long term sustainability of the GetReal Initiative and the tools on a not-for-profit basis (WP2). The project is supported by professional experienced consortium management (WP3) and an ethics work package (WP4).