From June 10 to 12, 2025, GlobalSkin CEO Jennifer Austin and Operations Director Allison FitzGerald attended the Patient Engagement Open Forum (PEOF), co-hosted by Patient-Focused Medicines Development (PFMD), EUPATI, and European Patients Forum.
This event is a global gathering bringing together an unparalleled network of multicultural and multidisciplinary visionaries to shape the future of Patient Engagement (PE). The dynamic community meets during virtual and face-to-face sessions to collaborate, foster innovation, and co-create groundbreaking solutions to tackle the status quo and shape a strategy to bring systematic PE to life. Allison is on the planning committee for this event and Jennifer has recently joined the Board of PFMD.
Jennifer contributed to the program, and by extension shared the perspective of skin patients, during several sessions. This included moderating a main plenary entitled, Leadership in Patient Engagement: Who’s Stepping Up? This session explored transforming systemic gaps into deliberate opportunities by identifying the roles of different actor’s role in PE. The panel, which included Juan Garcia from the European Medicines Agency, explored how we can evolve patient engagement and patient-centric approaches to take into consideration the unique needs of all patients. Jennifer also spoke in two workshops with different stakeholder groups entitled Global Vision to Local Mission: Social Participation Starts Now. She had the opportunity to share lessons learned and next steps concerning the recently adopted World Health Assembly Resolution on Skin Diseases.
GlobalSkin’s participation in the event aligns with its broader mission to ensure that the voices and priorities of dermatology patients are meaningfully represented in global discussions driving the advancement of Patient Engagement.
