Neuroscience has a complicated history in the healthcare industry, due to the pervasive nature of neurological conditions and the absence of specific treatments for them. This is slowly changing, as treatments improve and prognoses become more promising. Despite this progress, treatment outcomes have been slow to improve because of a lack of diagnoses. Consequently, this is one of the most rapidly expanding areas of pharma research.

Roche is one of the largest players in pharma, and their diverse teams and goals require them to think holistically about health conditions. Additionally, they are in the unique position of having the ability to offer better treatments, while at the same time possessing the right knowledge and network to improve the diagnostic journey.

Putting these resources to use in the most impactful way was the aim of this co-creation project.

Roche’s experience in both neurological diagnosis and treatments, gives them a unique opportunity to create real change and improve treatment outcomes in neuroscience.

Nevertheless, this is a relatively new field, and so the first challenge was to understand exactly how pharma firms can – or should – address the treatments, the patients and the various care providers involved. Design thinking and co-creation offered a solution to this. We brought all these players to the table to collaborate and create a new service direction.

This working group was comprised of experts from four key international markets – the US, Canada, Spain and Italy – which each have their own specific needs, but collectively create a strong sample of international medical markets. The entire project was conducted remotely, for maximum inclusion.

Co-creation techniques in these UX workshops with international experts allowed us to use design thinking to uncover where the pain points are for the general practitioners and neurologists on the ground, and even more importantly, to evaluate the likely impact of targeted solutions.