Twenty senior management and members of boards of directors of international patient organizations participated in the seminar. They were given the opportunity to learn more about areas such as health policy innovation, personalized medicine, branding, social mobilization, fund-raising and the defence of patients' rights. They were also able to share knowledge with professors at Harvard University and other American universities.

The objective of the seminar was to make participants aware of the challenges that patient organizations must face and help them understand the complexity of the healthcare system and the social change that affects these organizations so that they may design innovation strategies in health policy that focus on the role and importance of the patient.

The seminar was organized by the UIC’s Global Institute of Public Health and Health Policy, directed by Dr. Albert Jovell, together with Dr. Maria Dolors Navarro, the Head of the UIC Area of Epidemiology and Public Health, and Miles Shore, a professor emeritus at Harvard University, in collaboration with Novartis Oncology in New Jersey.