What Is Patient Advocacy Group Mapping?
A practical definition of patient advocacy group mapping (PAG mapping) for pharmaceutical patient engagement and medical affairs teams.
Patient advocacy group mapping — often shortened to PAG mapping or patient group mapping — is the structured process of identifying, profiling, and prioritizing the patient organizations that matter for a therapy, market, or engagement strategy.
Why pharmaceutical teams map PAGs
Medical affairs, patient engagement, and market access teams use mapping to answer questions like:
- Which patient advocacy groups represent patients in this indication?
- Where are they strongest geographically?
- Who is credible, active, and ready to partner?
- Who already works with competitors?
Without a map, teams rely on informal contacts, agency memory, and incomplete Google searches. That misses local groups, newly formed organizations, and groups named in other languages.
What a good PAG map includes
A useful patient advocacy group map is more than a spreadsheet of names. It typically covers:
- Discovery — every relevant PAG in scope, not just the famous ones
- Profiles — mission, programs, reach signals, research activity, governance
- Geography & therapeutic area — where groups operate and which conditions they serve
- Prioritization — scored shortlists for partnership, advisory boards, or education programs
- Evidence — sources and confidence so legal/compliance can trust the picture
Mapping vs. a static landscape deck
Traditional mapping projects produce slides that age quickly. Leadership changes, funding shifts, and new groups appear. Modern patient advocacy group mapping treats the landscape as living intelligence: searchable profiles, refreshable scores, and audit trails.
How to get started
If you are scoping your first landscape:
- Define indication, countries, and engagement goals
- Build or buy a patient advocacy database rather than starting from a blank search
- Run a PAG landscape analysis to score and shortlist
- Monitor priority groups as the ecosystem changes
PatientGroups.co exists for that workflow — map once, reuse continuously, and brief stakeholders with evidence-backed intelligence.