Jacob Gettier
Senior Associate Director, Marketing – IPF/ILD
Boehringer Ingelheim
Innovating Patient Involvement
When Jacob Gettier began his career in the pharma industry, he knew he wanted to work for a patient-forward company. That wasn’t just a priority for him—it was a requirement. He believes that patient and caregiver mentors are uniquely positioned to be strong advocates for disease education and empowerment. And he brought that mindset with him when he joined the OFEV (nintedanib) team in 2019.
Under his leadership, the team doubled the reach of patient and caregiver engagements over the previous year through live and phone-based mentor activities. In 2019, the OFEV/Lungs&You Mentor Programs offered live engagements to help bring awareness and education to patient and HCP communities. Also, as part of the OFEV Mentor Connections Program, mentors called other OFEV patients/caregivers who wanted to speak with someone who is going through the same experiences as themselves for support, understanding, and compassion.
With the recent approval of two new indications for OFEV and the success of the IPF Mentor Program, Jacob recently expanded the program to include these two new indications: Scleroderma with lung involvement and chronic interstitial lung diseases with a progressive phenotype. Jacob also created buzz internally at BI when he had the mentors at the forefront of the 2019 National Sales Meeting, which included a mentor panel and story share to all of the employees in attendance. The success of bringing real, authentic patient voices to this type of meeting has continued to increase the various ways patients and caregivers can be used internally and externally.
Jacob is also always willing to invest in new channels to reach patients. One example is an interactive webinar event utilizing the Pando platform from The Inception Company, which bridges virtual engagement with a live video presentation. In 2020, his team will hold a nation-wide event to reach scleroderma patients at their home, providing them with disease education and the opportunity to connect with others living with scleroderma.
Ultimately, Jacob is a champion of weaving the patient experience through all touchpoints that have an impact on patients.
