Veeva Commercial Summit Europe: The Race to High-Value Engagement

Having spent the last few years embracing digital transformation in their organizations, commercial leaders are now focused on cutting through the noise to reach the right HCPs. Contrary to widespread assumption, HCP access in Europe has bounced back to 52% from pandemic-era lows. However, not all field teams are benefiting equally: 65% of accessible HCPs choose to meet three or fewer pharma companies.

The right combination of real-time customer data, analytics, and content will help life sciences companies stand out. This year’s Veeva Commercial Summit, Europe, explored how organizations can improve connections between sales, medical, and marketing to achieve commercial excellence. Here are the top five Summit highlights.

1. Europe’s largest gathering of life sciences leaders

More than 1,100 pharma professionals joined Veeva’s first in-person Commercial Summit in three years. This year’s Summit featured 100+ sessions with exclusive content across four Zones: CRM Suite, Vault PromoMats and Vault Medical, Link, and OpenData. Regional roundtables also took place with industry peers on the future of customer engagement and how to drive successful hybrid engagement models.

2. The race is on to high-value engagement

Keynote speaker Malcolm Crooks, COO of COUR Pharmaceuticals, is a life science veteran with 30 years of experience in launching products at Pfizer, Merck Serono, Shire, and Takeda. Crooks joined us on stage to discuss how to achieve commercial excellence in a challenging environment. Rising costs are constraining national healthcare budgets and Veeva Pulse Field Trends Report shows that HCPs are becoming more selective about which biopharma companies they meet. Crooks shared how COUR uses digital campaigns to accelerate site recruitment and analytics to prioritize markets for its first-in-class therapies, which use nanoparticles to treat the root causes of immune diseases, including peanut allergies and celiac disease.

Chris Moore, president of Veeva Europe, and Malcolm Crooks, COO of COUR Pharmaceuticals, on stage at Veeva Commercial Summit in November 2022.

3. Better connections needed between sales, medical, and marketing

More than 100 customer experts shared best practices for achieving commercial excellence and improving collaboration to better serve customers. Pharma innovators discussed how software, data, and consulting are helping them raise the bar on HCP engagement. Customer speakers included:

• Andres Diaz Avila, executive director and head of experience services and digital innovation at Genentech, spoke about delivering meaningful and consistent customer experiences that result in better patient outcomes. This requires closer collaboration between sales, medical, and marketing.
• Luca Frangoni, global head of content and execution excellence at Boehringer Ingelheim, discussed the role of modular content in fueling the omnichannel experience and improving operational efficiency. He explained some of the critical components of effective end-to-end content management and the positives of personalization at scale at a time when customer needs are changing fast.
• Tom Keith-Welsh, head of medical digital, data, analytics, and systems at GSK, explained how to leverage real-time customer intelligence across the organization. The changing medical landscape requires a new approach to engaging scientific and medical experts. Through the intelligent use of data, GSK now has a more effective cross-channel approach to expert engagement that delivers on patient focus.
• Baptiste Omont, director and team leader for commercial systems at Idorsia Pharmaceuticals, outlined how fragmented technology and data have held back progress in the past. He highlighted the importance of integrated software and data in creating a single source of truth for life sciences companies, which has enabled Idorsia to deliver its vision with speed.
• Catrinel Galateanu, head of global medical affairs at UCB, shared best practices for organizations seeking to balance cross-functional alignment with patient focus – as UCB is doing, as part of its 2030 strategy.

4. Veeva Heroes: Celebrating extraordinary people making real impact

Each year, Veeva honors a few industry pioneers advancing the industry toward higher-value engagement. By navigating their organizations through significant and complex change, these pharma innovators have made a real and positive impact. This year, we celebrated Veeva Heroes from GSK, Almirall, UCB, Idorsia Pharmaceuticals, Novartis Gene Therapies, and Menarini.

5. Announcements on Link Scientific Awareness and Veeva Pulse EU

We announced that three of the top ten biopharmas are using Link Scientific Awareness. A standalone data application on the Link platform, Link Scientific Awareness measures HCP awareness and sentiment toward different drugs and enables more relevant medical communications.

We also announced that Veeva Pulse Field Trends Report is available in the EU. The Pulse Report provides granular insights on HCP access in Europe (read the press release). Field team leads can benchmark their companies with exclusive data by specialty, channel, and country.

As HCPs become connected customers, it’s more important than ever for sales, medical, and marketing to work together to deliver a seamless user experience. By bringing together software, data, and consulting, and ensuring those pieces connect seamlessly, we’re helping to drive toward commercial excellence – and we’re doing that together with you.

Learn from industry leaders and watch keynotes on-demand from Veeva Commercial Summit, Europe.