Julie Niggle
Senior Marketing Manager, Consumer Marketing
Baxalta
A Truly Patient Centric Leader
Patient centric has been a popular buzzword in the pharma industry for the past couple of years, but what does it mean to be truly patient centric? It means you are someone like Julie Niggle.
In an effort to better understand and connect with the primary immunodeficiency (PI) community she serves, Julie participated in a home visit with a patient, but not as herself. She made a child’s day by dressing as a life-sized version of the huggable blue bear IGI. This blue bear is part of Baxalta’s PI Therapeutic Play Kit, which is given to children with PI to help them better understand their disease. But that only scratches the surface of Julie’s work helping this patient community.
Julie spearheaded a peer-to-peer program called “My Life. My Story.” to help adult PI patients learn more about HYQVIA, an approved PI treatment for adults, in both an inspiring and engaging way. HYQVIA Brand Ambassadors speak at local live meetings, sharing their personal journeys about living with PI and their treatment experiences. Patients are also able to engage and learn from each other—forming a stronger connection to the PI community. Since the launch of “My Life. My Story.” Baxalta has held more than 90 programs across the country and reached more than 750 individuals in the community.
Julie also helped to further educate PI patients through various avenues online, including HYQVIA.com, which she took from a one-page launch site to a robust portal with patient-centric tools such as an interactive checklist to help patients prepare to discuss their administration options with their healthcare team. And in 2015, she worked with Intouch Solutions to lead the charge in the social space by securing approval for and launching a YouTube Channel and Facebook page for MyIgSource, the first social entities for the franchise. Since it was launched on December 1, 2015, the MyIgSource Facebook page has received more than 14,000 Page Likes, and an average post-level engagement of 11.6%, exceeding the goal of 3.5%.
Julie always makes decisions with the patients’ best interest in mind, which makes her the exact kind of leader the pharma industry is yearning for.
