THOUGHT STARTER SERIES
Medical’s strategic importance to life sciences has grown. The industry’s shift to precision medicine and hybrid engagement have reshaped expectations for how medical affairs teams create value.
At Veeva, we see medical at the forefront of the relationship not only with key opinion leaders and experts, but with influencers, payers, and patients. Given the demand for stronger patient centricity in specialty and rare disease, a deep understanding and effective communication of science and data will be key sources of differentiation and medical impact in the future.
In this thought starter, we’ll explore:
- The key trends that are shaping medical affairs today
- Where medical affairs should be focusing its strategic efforts
- How medical affairs can translate intent into action
Industry shifts impacting medical affairs
1. Growing scientific complexity
More complex treatments mean KOLs place increasing importance on medical scientific liaisons (MSLs) and other field medical roles to be their trusted advisors through scientific exchange. In turn, MSLs have to amplify this voice of the customer to their product, R&D, and commercial teams with speed.
2. Expanding stakeholder landscape
Patients, payers, and regulatory authorities now engage with medical with greater intensity and volume, to better understand data and value of treatments.
3. Customers as consumers
HCPs expect to have a seamless, consumer-grade experience from life sciences. This means companies must embrace digital channels and on-demand content through a coordinated approach.
4. Increasing demand to demonstrate outcomes
The volume of information available has exploded, and KOLs and Medical’s external and internal stakeholders now demand data showing clear articulation of value and outcomes.
5. Seamless external interface
With closer internal collaboration comes the need for stronger external coordination in all facets of stakeholder engagement. This is requiring greater data and technology adoption not just for medical affairs, but across R&D and commercial.
Expansion of the medical affairs horizon
Responding to fundamental shifts in the industry landscape and changes in customer behavior requires medical leaders to focus on four key roles to generate value across R&D and commercial.
| ROLE | RESPONSIBILITY | KEY ENABLERS |
|---|---|---|
Precision Engager
|
Engages in precise, impactful scientific exchange that delivers the right information at the right time in the right channel |
|
Value Orchestrator
|
Creates and delivers differentiated value propositions that respond to unmet needs |
|
Insight Generator
|
Delivers timely and integrated actionable insights that drive enhanced decision making for field and product teams |
|
Patient Voice Amplifier
|
Captures voice of the patient and seamlessly feeds into all product and customer-related activities across the product lifecycle |
|
Enabling precise scientific engagement
Digital channels are a core component of any impactful medical engagement approach, as evidenced by the high levels of digital usage since COVID-19 emerged in 2020. This growth has also fueled an explosion in the different types and volume of content to feed medical customer demand. Consider the following snapshot taken from our 2023 Veeva Pulse data:
- Global medical interactions have increased by ~10%
- Overall productivity has increased by ~2-3 face-to-face calls per week
- 31% of medical interactions are digital, more than other field users
- Only 30% of in-person interactions use trackable content
Delivering the right information to the right stakeholder at the right time requires deep stakeholder intelligence about their motivations, needs, and preferences. A digital infrastructure would allow for actionable insights to be captured and shared so every scientific interaction builds on the last and delivers a consumer-grade experience.
That being said, medical leaders recognize precise scientific engagement is not about flooding KOLs and stakeholders with scientific information but pinpointing the highest value mode of action. They understand that the lightest touch may sometimes be an effective interaction in creating a valuable experience for the expert. The question then is, how? How can they build the right capabilities to offer precise impactful engagement?
Foundational capabilities for medical value generation
Across the industry, medical affairs organizations are focused on the following value creation levers:
In order to create this value, medical affairs teams in companies big and small are investing their energy around five key capabilities to build the necessary foundations for growth and value creation.
1. CUSTOMER INTELLIGENCE: Modern, data-connected ecosystem that navigates stakeholder networks influencing and shaping the debate and discussion around a disease area and patient treatment pathway.
2. OMNICHANNEL STRATEGY AND ROADMAP: A medical-specific vision, strategy, and roadmap for omnichannel, grounded in the HCP/KOL journey and touchpoints and coordinated with clinical and commercial, delivering a precise, seamless, and orchestrated experience.
3. INSIGHTS & ANALYTICS: End-to-end insights capability that delivers real-time, actionable insights driving responsive business decisions.
4. SCIENTIFIC CONTENT EXCELLENCE: Channel-agnostic content that delivers consistent scientific information from drug discovery to post-approval, at the right time, in the way the HCP/KOL demands.
5. DIGITAL EXCELLENCE: Integrated approach to platforms, processes, and people to realize the transformative potential of digital.
These foundational capabilities provide the bedrock for medical to build on over time to advanced levels of engagement, insight, and content management. From our work with industry leaders, maturity in these five capabilities is a leading indicator of the relative strength and fitness of a medical affairs organization to the demands and expectations placed on it.
Critical success factors
Making these key capabilities an operational reality, and doing so in a scalable and sustainable way, requires careful management and tracking of the following critical success factors:
• SINGLE SOURCE OF TRUTH. A unified CRM, integrated with technology solutions for headquarters to capture their HCP interactions, drives end-user utilization across medical teams and can help ensure an accurate and holistic view of all interactions with external stakeholders. To gain this level of visibility, focus first on aligning to key medical processes of engagement, insights generation, and content management. Adopt a cross-functional perspective, leading from the business issues to be solved, not the functional territories of the organization.
• CHANGE MANAGEMENT. Create a medical impact-led, value realization framework that combines process, data, technology, content, and operating model.
• A STRONG CASE FOR CHANGE. Provide a clear sense of ‘What’s in it for me?’ to field MSLs, building a thread between their daily priorities and the configuration of tools and technologies provided. A laser focus on the value proposition for end users will increase motivation for change and adoption of new ways of working.
• DESIGN FOR MEDICAL-SPECIFIC NEEDS. A common mistake companies make is taking ‘off-the-shelf’ products or commercial-led solutions and forcing a fit for medical usage. Leaders should carefully evaluate and design core tools and technologies with the specific needs of medical front of mind. This ensures medical stakeholders are equipped with tools, dashboards, and reports that resonate and enable them to perform their jobs to be done more effectively.
Key takeaways
- Fundamental shifts in the industry landscape and customer behavior have created a need for medical affairs to fulfill expanded and new roles.
- Precise, high-impact scientific engagement requires transformation across the medical operating model, beyond just the medical field.
- Focus should be placed on a ‘fundamentals first’ approach, building the underlying capabilities that will deliver sustainable, integrated value now and for the coming years’ priorities.
- Accelerated value creation in medical requires a fit-for-purpose solution designed with operational effectiveness for impact in mind.
Shailini Blackwell
Team Manager & Global Medical BC Lead
shailini.blackwell@veeva.com