Veeva Commercial & Medical Summit Europe: Accelerating Digital Excellence

Life sciences companies have accelerated the shift to digital by investing time and effort in remote engagement. Field reps quickly adapted engagement strategies with Veeva CRM Engage Meetings, increasing by a staggering 891%.

This year’s Veeva Commercial & Medical Summit, Europe, explored how organizations quickly implemented and leveraged digital solutions. Top 6 Summit highlights:

1. Largest virtual gathering for the European life sciences community

More than 3,500 life sciences professionals registered for Veeva’s very first online Commercial & Medical Summit in Europe. This year’s Summit featured 80+ sessions with exclusive content across four tracks on Commercial Excellence, Commercial Content, Data & Intelligence, and Medical, and 15 country-specific sessions in local languages (French, Spanish, Italian, German).

2. Industry leaders experience on accelerating digital excellence

Keynote speakers included Francesca Wuttke, chief digital officer at Almirall, and Alessandro de Luca, CIO – healthcare sector at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany on accelerating towards digital excellence. They highlighted how 2020 has been a year of end-to-end digital transformation and shared ambitions driving their companies into a digital evolution. Wuttke explained how they created their “Digital Garden” initiative, an innovation challenge open to startups who disrupt the future of digital health. This nine-month program aim to accelerate cultural transformation within Almirall and raise the level of digital acumen.

Francesca Wuttke, Chief Digital Officer from Almirall, and Alessandro de Luca, CIO – Healthcare Sector from Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.

3. Innovative digital transformation stories

Over 50 customer speakers shared best practices to advance digital strategies and drive business decisions. Experts talked about what effectiveness and success look like in a COVID-19 world by sharing their digital transformation journey. These include:

• Romain Piccolo, sales representative, respiratory at Boehringer Ingelheim, spoke about his first-hand experience as a medical sales rep on how to most effectively engage digitally by leveraging the right content. Piccolo highlighted the evolution of the medical visit from a push to a doctor-initiated pull and the impact on pharma sales reps.
• Melissa Fellner, global marketing director at AstraZeneca discussed the challenges and critical imperatives for digital excellence. She explained how they are rapidly adapting to the new ways of engagement and shaping their digital roadmap.
• Giovanni Luca Merlotti, head of global multichannel execution at Sanofi Pasteur, shared how to empower reps to leverage field calls and remote interactions to engage with HCPs. Sanofi Pasteur is developing tailored content for their reps to be effective and is bringing the right mix of virtual and face-to-face to their markets.
• Angela Genco, head of integrated multichannel marketing & sales at Bayer Italy, and Elie Dubrulle, CRM project manager at Bayer France, highlighted the importance of having a strong data foundation for successful digital transformation. They improved business decision-making and reevaluated their customer engagement.
• Liselle Mulcaire, global platforms & programs director, global medical affairs at Novartis, discussed the steps to create, deliver, and execute scientific content. She exposed what happens backstage in terms of content creation and how to best adapt to the audience’s evolving needs.
• Puneet Srivastava, content strategy leader at Bayer, shared how the company leverages modular content to personalize the customer experience at scale. He dove into how and why they moved away from a fragmented, channel-centric content approach to a modular one.

4. Celebrating the driving force for change and success in organizations

At every Summit, we recognize pioneers leading the way for better customer engagement by driving transformational programs within their organizations. This year, we celebrated Veeva Heroes from LEO Pharma, Sanofi, UCB, Kyowa Kirin International (KKI), Lupin, and Boehringer Ingelheim.

2020, Veeva Heroes

5. Product innovation to support digital excellence

The event marked the announcement of new products such as MyVeeva for Doctors, making it easy for HCPs to connect with life sciences and get the resources they need to better treat patients. Veeva Link delivers real-time customer intelligence on key people in 11 new therapeutic areas. We also announced Adobe as a new strategic partner to help life sciences with overall digital transformation in content management, digital engagement, and document productivity.

The past year has accelerated digital adoption by anywhere between three and five years across the industry. As we head into 2021, we remain focused and dedicated to helping life sciences with their journey to achieve digital excellence.

Visit our Resource Centre to get the latest insights from leading pharmas and biotechs on innovative approaches to commercialization.