Patient Advocate and Social Entrepreneur

Jan Geissler
- Founder and CEO, Patvocates, Germany
- Chair of EUPATI Futures Team, European Patients' Academy (EUPATI)
- Co-Founder, CML Advocates Network / Vice President Leukemia Patient Advocates Foundation, Switzerland
- Chair, Leukaemie-Online / LeukaNET e.V., Germany
Jan Geissler is founder and managing director of Patvocates, a think tank, consultancy and social enterprise on patient advocacy, health policy and patient engagement in medical research. From 2012-2017, he has been working for the European Patients' Forum as the Director of the 'European Patients Academy (EUPATI), a project funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI). EUPATI has developed educational material and training courses to educate patient and patient advocates about medicines development processes. In the one of Europe's largest "Big Data" projects, the IMI-funded EU project HARMONY, he is co-leading the work package on stakeholder input from patient organisations, HTA bodies, regulators and other stakeholders.
Jan studied at the University of Regensburg (Germany) and Aston University (Birmingham, UK), graduating with a university diploma in business. Jan then worked for the media company Bertelsmann, Germany. Emerging from his work in Bertelsmann's Think Tank "mediaTechnologies", he co-founded Bertelsmann's in-house startup BeMobile, heading product management, business development and marketing. In 2003, he joined Vodafone Group R&D where he headed business modelling teams in Germany and The Netherlands, defining the business models of cutting-edge projects connecting media and technology. He was leading multinational and multicultural innovation projects in Europe and Asia.
In 2008, he decided to leave Vodafone and focused his professional life on patient advocacy. The reason why Jan started to engage in cancer advocacy already in 2001 was that Jan received his diagnosis of a rare cancer, Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) at the age of 28 years. He joined a phase I/II clinical trial and started to translate and publish medical publications into German lay language. In 2002, he founded the online patient community Leukämie-Online/LeukaNET, which is one of the most frequented online communities for leukemia patients in the German speaking Internet today. In 2007, Jan co-founded the CML Advocates Network. It today connects 122 leukaemia patient groups in 92 countries on all continents. In 2003, he co-founded the European Cancer Patient Coalition (European umbrella association connecting more than 400 cancer patient groups) and became its first full time director 2008-2010. In 2016, he co-founded the Acute Leukemia Advocates Network (ALAN) and the Workgroup of European Cancer patient Advocacy Networks (WECAN).
Today, he is a patients' representative in various steering committees and advisory boards, acting e.g. as chair of the ISPOR Patient Roundtable Europe, as member of the ECCO Patient Advisory Committee, the Editorial Boards of the Journal of European CME and the Journal of Cancer Policy, the Institutional Review Board of EORTC, the scientific advisory board of the International CML Foundation, the strategy group of the the German National Decade Against Cancer, the Scientific Advisory Board of the Berlin Institute of Health and the board of Patient Focused Medicines Development (PFMD). He also acts as an independent expert for the EU Commission, e.g. in the Horizon Europe Cancer Mission Assembly and in Horizon 2020 review panels. He is also member of the Ethics Committee of the Bavarian Chamber of Physicians. In 2016, he was awarded with the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his work as a patient advocate.
Publications and Interviews
- Cross-Border Access to Clinical Trials in the EU: Exploratory Study on Needs and Reality. Lalova, Padeanu, Negrouk, Lacombe, Geissler, Klingmann, Huys, in: Frontiers in Medicine (2020), doi: 10.3389/fmed.2020.585722
- Treatment-free remission in chronic myeloid leukemia: the patient perspective and areas of unmet needs. Sharf, Marin, Bradley, Pemberton-Whiteley, Bombaci, Christensen, Gouimi, Deekes, Daban, Geissler, in: Leukemia (2020), doi: 10.1038/s41375-020-0867-0
- Including the patient voice in the development and implementation of patient-reported outcomes in cancer clinical trials. Addario, Geissler, Horn, Krebs, Maskens, Oliver, Plate, Schwartz, Willmarth, in: Health Expectations (2019), doi: 10.1111/hex.12997
- Beyond maximum grade: modernising the assessment and reporting of adverse events in haematological malignancies. Thanarajasingam, Minasian, Baron, Cavalli, De Claro, Dueck, El-Galaly, Everest, Geissler et al, in: Lancet Haematology (2018), doi: 10.1016/S2352-3026(18)30051-6
- What do stakeholders expect from patient engagement: Are these expectations being met? Boudes, Robinson, Bertelsen, Brooke, Hoos, Boutin, Geissler, Sargeant, in: Health Expectations (2018), doi: 10.1111/hex.12797
- Role of Patient Organisations. Bedlington, Geissler, Houyez, Lightbourne, Maskens, Strammiello, in: Patient Involvement in Health Technology Assessment. Facey, Ploug Hansen, Single (Ed.) (2017), doi: 10.1007/978-981-10-4068-9
- Improving Patient Involvement in Medicines Research and Development: A Practical Roadmap. Geissler, Ryll, Leto, Uhlenhopp, Therapeutic Innovation & Regulatory Science (2017), doi: 10.1177/2168479017706405
- Factors influencing adherence in CML and ways to improvement: Results of a patient-driven survey of 2546 patients in 79 countries. Geissler, Sharf, Bombaci, Daban, de Jong, Gavin, Pelouchova, Dziwinksi, Hasford, Hoffmann, Journal of Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology (2017), DOI: 10.1007/s00432-017-2372-z
- Chronic myeloid leukemia patients call for quality and consistency when generics are introduced to treat their cancer; J Geissler, G Sharf, J Cugurovic, R Padua, Š Narbutas, M Remic, V Venkatesh; Leukemia (2016); doi: 10.1038/leu.2016.220
- Biobanking from the patient perspective, D Mitchell, J. Geissler, A Parry-Jones, H Keulen, D Schmitt, R Vavassori, B Matharoo-Ball., Research Involvolvement and Engagement (2015) 1: 4. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40900-015-0001-z
- Mobile Health Global Interview with Jan Geissler, 29 Sept 2015
- EUPATI: Collaborating between patients, academia and industry to champion the informed patient in medicines research and development, Daphnee Pushparajah, Jan Geissler, Niels Westergaard, in: Journal of Medicines Development Science (July 2015), DOI: 10.18063/JMDS.2015.01.011
- "Partnering With Patients in the Development and Lifecycle of Medicines: A Call for Action", Anton Hoos, James Anderson, Marc Boutin, Lode Dewulf, Jan Geissler, Graeme Johnston, Angelika Joos, Marilyn Metcalf, in: Therapeutic Innovation & Regulatory Science (April 2015), DOI: 10.1177/2168479015580384
- Training on trials: Patients taught the language of drug development, Shraddha Chakradhar, Nature Medicine (5 March 2015), doi:10.1038/nm0315-209, with Interview of Jan Geissler
- Patienten brauchen Sicherheit, aber auch Fortschritt - Die neue EU-Verordnung zu klinischen Arzneimittelprüfungen, Jan Geißler, FORUM 2015, 30:29–32, DOI 10.1007/s12312-015-1266-8, Springer, February 2015
- ePatients: Changing healthcare with technology, Interview on Mobile Health Global, 27 November 2014
- Patients as partners in medicines development – the EUPATI project, Interview of an Geissler in Pharmaforum blog, 14 Oct 2014
- Molekular zielgerichtete Therapie der chronischen myeloischen Leukämie (CML), Prof. Dr. Tim H. Brümmendorf und Prof. Dr. Steffen Koschmieder (Hrsg.), Jan Geissler (Co-Autor), UNI-MED, 1. Auflage 2014, 140 Seiten, Hardcover, ISBN 978-3-8374-2269-6
- Der Patient als Partner, Jan Geissler, Jahrbuch Healthcare Marketing 2014 zu "Patient, Verbraucher, Kunden – bestimmen die Nutzer den Gesundheitsmarkt?"
- Survey on the worldwide CML Advocates Network regarding complementary and alternative medicine, Journal of Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology, T Elsner, J Geissler, J Huebner, J Cancer Res Clin Oncol, March 2013, DOI 10.1007/s00432-013-1414-4
- Adherence in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia: Results of a Patient-driven Pilot Survey, Jan Geissler, Giora Sharf, Journal For Patient Compliance, Vol 2 Issue 4 (published online on 12 Dec 2012)
- Psycho-oncology and Advocacy in Cancer Care: An International Perspective, Luzia Travado, Jan Geissler, Kim Thiboldeaux, Jeff Dunn, Ranjit Kaur, and Anne Merriman. in: Clinical Psycho-Oncology: An International Perspective, Luigi Grassi, Michelle Riba, Wiley (2012), DOI: 10.1002/9781119941101
- Delivering affordable cancer care in high-income countries, Richard Sullivan et al (Jan Geissler), The Lancet Oncology Commission, Lancet Oncol 2011; 12: 933–80
- Meet e-patient Jan (Whydot Blog Interview, 1 Aug 2011)
- Survivorship: more than just being (a) patient (European Oncology Nursing Society Newsletter, Summer 2011 edition, pp. 25-27)
- Information to Patients Debate 2010 – as if the Internet was still a walled garden, Rare Disease Blogs April 2010
- The burden of Rare Cancers in Europe - Gatta G et al, Adv Exp Med Biol. 2010; 686:285-303,
- Informierte Einwilligung in klinischen Studien (Informed Consent in Clinical Trials (German), German Cancer Society's FORUM magazine 3/2010:
- We, the Patients - CancerWorld Magazine, January 2010
Webstreams of Public Presentations
- Why Research Needs to be More Patient-Centric – Interview with Jan Geissler (Patient Focused Medicines Development, Nov 2015)
- ECCO Oncopolicy Forum 2012: Educating patients as partners in personalised medicine, 11 October 2012
- 2nd EORTC Symposium on Quality of Life Research, Quality of Life, Symptom Research and Patient Reported Outcomes in Cancer Clinical Trials, September 7-9 2011, European Parliament: "Getting Patients Included in Clinical Trials - Patients' and Regulatory Views of HRQOL"
- eCancer: Patient advocacy session on treatment adherence - moderated by Jan Geissler
- Advocacy in Action: The Educated Patient and the Internet
- EHA Congress 2010 - EHA patient advocacy session looking at access to clinical trials
- EHA Congress 2010 - EHA media briefing: Ageism in cancer treatment in Europe
- eCancer: The role of patient advocacy groups and the efforts being made to help improve the spread and accessibility of information for patients
- EMCC 2011: Ethics surrounding cancer in the elderly and the pros and cons of web-based resources
- Interview: Tackling ageism in cancer treatment
- Patient perspective of ECCO 15 - ESMO 34
- Supporting the European Action Against Rare Cancers