Bayer launches the BayPAP Web App, a web based platform to allow for easier management for cancer patients on the patient assistance program, especially for liver cancer patients.
BayPAP (Bayer Patient Assistance Program) Web App is a collaboration between Bayer and healthcare service provider Zuellig Pharma, which provides patients and physicians access to a specially designed portal for a paperless approach. The portal will include a holistic record of the patient’s treatment duration on Bayer’s medication as well as history of redemption, allowing patients, their loved ones and the doctors effectively monitor and stay on course with their treatment.
Each BayPAP patient is provided a starter kit and guided through the patient information leaflet, which includes a specific doctor’s code for registration, by their doctor. A hotline system is also available to guide patients in using the BayPAP Web App. The app also provides greater visibility into the enrolment and medication distribution.
Dr John Low Seng Hooi, Consultant Clinical Oncologist at Pantai Hospital Kuala Lumpur and Sunway Medical Centre explains that liver cancer is the sixth most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide.
“Going ‘paperless’ with the BayPAP Web App is certainly a step in the right direction for the healthcare industry. With detailed information and pertinent records at our fingertips, and our patients now being able to interact better with us, we can follow through easily on their condition and ultimately facilitate better treatment outcomes.”
HCC is commonly found among the Chinese, followed by the Malays and Indians, with the prevalence particularly higher in older Chinese men over 60 years of age. As one of the most difficult cancers to treat, the outlook for patients in advanced stages of HCC is generally dismal, with an expected overall survival (OS) of only six months to a year.
BayPAP is a patient assistance program designed to assist Malaysian patients who have been diagnosed with certain cancers and prescribed with Sorafenib or Regorafenib by their doctors. First launched in 2009, the program provides medication assistance to liver cancer patients suitable for treatment with Sorafenib, an oral targeted therapy for inoperable liver cancer (known scientifically as hepatocellular carcinoma, HCC). Bayer then introduced its second patient assistance program in 2014 to assist patients with colorectal and gastrointestinal stromal tumour (GIST) cancers who are treated with an oral targeted therapy treatment, called Regorafenib.
According to Jennifer Yong, Managing Director of Bayer Co. (Malaysia), over 300 patients have benefited from the BayPAP since its inception in 2009. “Patients are at the heart of everything we do,” she said. “With the newly improved, innovative and rebranded BayPAP, patients will be able to have easy access to a one-stop web-based medication assistance resource and save the lead time during the redemption of their free medication.”
Yong also said that the launch and collaboration with Zuellig Pharma is timely, as more and more physicians see the advantage of going digital.
Mr Moses Hee, Vice President, CareConnect of Zuellig Pharma, said that digital solutions in today’s healthcare landscape is essential. “Unless we dramatically change our approach, we will never be able to keep up with the region’s fast-growing healthcare needs. Effective and affordable disease prevention measures are important, but disease management is equally important and there is a real need for us to help patients better manage their medical conditions, especially chronic conditions.”
