“We're weird, right, in our industry. Which other industry does not involve the end user in the development process? Whenever I speak to friends outside of our industry, they look at me as if I'm crazy. … What we're talking about here is different. It's really considering the patient perspective as an integral part of your development strategy and asking their views at the earliest stages of development, so you can incorporate it in your development plan, in your regulatory strategy, in your commercialization.”
The BioCentury Show · October 2026
Context
The host said biotech companies and investors often treat regulators, not patients, as the end users, and asked how patient engagement has changed Gilde's approach to investing. This is Muijrers's opening answer.
Transcript
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…patients. So, what do we need to do to meet, you know, sort of thinking like, you know, what do we need to do to meet the regulators' requirements? Can we talk about how patient engagement has changed your investment philosophy, your strategy, kind of what that's meant for your portfolio companies?
For sure. And it's really something that we try to take very seriously at GILDA. And this was also very much inspired by the Impact Council we just discussed. Because you're right, we're weird, right, in our industry. Like, which other industry does not involve the end user in the development process really involve? Whenever I speak to friends outside of our industry, they look at me as if I'm crazy. So for them, it's nothing new, but for us, because look, I mean, I'm not going to sit there and say we don't do any sort of patient engagement as an industry. But what we're talking about here is different. It's really considering the patient perspective as an integral part of your development strategy and asking their views at the earliest stages of development. So you can incorporate what they will tell you. And you can incorporate that in your development plan. You can incorporate it in your regulatory strategy, in your commercialization. That's sort of what we're talking about. And it's been a journey we've been on now for a while. It's been extremely impactful, Steven. We can talk about that.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, are there some examples here that you could share where that sort of early patient engagement has changed things either for your portfolio companies or just how you think about sort of investment?
Yeah, for sure. So, well, let me go back a little bit. Where did this come from? One of our impact council members, David Harry, I met him the first time now about 10, 12 years ago. This was the first time I was really exposed to patient engagement. And the story at that time was we had a cancer…
Yeah, no, that's really interesting. And, you know, obviously, I think, you know, usually when I talk to investors, a lot of times, you know, they'll mention, oh, well, you know, it's the KOL physicians. You know, we were heavily leaning on them to get their things. So where do you think patient…
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