Author: Andrii Nikulin

Communication saves lives. Everything starts the moment a patient walks into the office. From this point, the success of any treatment depends solely on whether the patient and doctor find common ground. How can this happen? Let’s talk about it. 

Compelling communications are quite rare between patient and doctor. Healthcare professionals must treat a diverse range of people who often feel challenged to describe concerns in medical or scientific terms. Thus, in doctor-patient communication, professionals must understand the patients’ query even when described most colloquially and vaguely.  

In this article, we will discuss how to improve patient-clinician communication: basic principles, key advice, and main obstacles.

Importance of Quality Patient-Doctor Communication

Health care aims to preserve and enhance patients’ health in terms of disease, damage, functional status, and overall well-being. However, achieving these goals depends on physician-patient relationships, in which both parties’ perspectives must be conveyed and communicated effectively. 

Did you know that communicative errors are a major contributing factor to hospital sentinel events? During times of emergency, there is an increased risk of poor communication between doctor and patient. It can lead to poor health outcomes and inappropriate medical care. 

In an era of more patient-centered treatment and rising clinical complexity, compelling effective communication between the patient and the practitioner is more crucial than ever. Patients are the key stakeholders and should take an active part in choosing the appropriate clinical care for themselves. Clinicians, in turn, should value patients’ opinions and expectations, and give them the attention they deserve when making treatment decisions.

Nowadays, a fundamental clinical competence is understanding the importance of doctor-patient communication. How physicians interact with patients can significantly influence how they feel about their treatment and how they maintain their health outcomes after leaving the doctor’s care.

What Are the Barriers to Effective Doctor-Patient Communication?

Healthcare professionals must address the reasons for failure in communication to find effective remedies. We gathered the key barriers to effective contact between the medical practitioner and patient:

• A fundamental lack of empathy and/or communication skills. PCPs can lose sight of patient care, relying instead on methods and formalities rather than direct, honest dialogue. 
• Keeping information secret. Clinical results might be significantly impacted if patients do not fully comprehend their health condition or treatment options. 
• Discouraging patient participation. Ignoring patients’ pleas for clarification and/or preventing them from expressing their expectations or worries. Patients could feel powerless, which could result in treatment failure. 
• Avoidance. They avoid talking when it comes to emotional or social impact. There is no use in talking about a problem if the medical practitioner believes they cannot assist their patient with it. 

However, these barriers can be easily overcome by following the below-mentioned principles. 

What Are the Basic Principles of Patient-Clinician Communication?

All forms of interaction between patient and doctor require basic communicative abilities. These consist of:

• written,
• nonverbal,
• spoken influences. 

Healthcare professionals can increase patient satisfaction if they have a strong balance of all these abilities. Sometimes all it takes to win someone over is the correct body language or just listening intently to what they have to say.

There are some basic conversation skills that physicians must be proficient in, like active listening, empathy, and the use of open-ended inquiries to delve into a patient’s past are a few of them. Let’s discuss essential effective professional communication skills in detail:

Connection 

• Connect on a social level; 
• Consider the patient’s viewpoint; 
• Consciously try to suspend judgment; 
• Recognize and refrain from making assumptions. 

Empathy during med practice 

• Remember, the patient has asked you for med assistance; 
• Look for and comprehend the patient’s justifications for their actions or sickness; 
• Recognize and validate the sentiments of your patient out loud. 

Systematic support 

• Discover any obstacles to care and compliance; 
• Assist the patient in overcoming obstacles and give feedback; 
• Include their family member if it seems sensible to do so; 
• Assure the patient that you are and will be willing to assist them. 

Partnership 

• Be adaptable, discuss roles and respect each other; 
• Emphasize that you will be collaborating to address medical issues.  

Trust with awareness 

• For certain patients not used to Western medical practices, self-disclosure may be a problem; 
• Invest the required time and deliberately try to build trust. 

Cultural competence 

• The doctor should respect the patient’s culture and beliefs; 
• Recognize that the patient’s perception of you can be shaped by preconceptions based on ethnicity or culture; 
• Acknowledge your prejudices and biases; 
• Identify your limitations while dealing with medical difficulties in different cultures; 
•  Admit when your unique approach might not be appropriate for a specific patient. 

Best Practices for Physician-Patient Communication in Virtual Consultations

A healthy patient-physician relationship depends on doctors delivering information clearly and compassionately. Effective clinician-patient communication may need to be improved in virtual consultations, which call for more clinical production while providing less time for each patient. 

Nevertheless, telemedicine has become increasingly popular, especially since the pandemic. According to National Health Interview Survey: 

Telehealthcare calls for enhanced communication through interviews with patients, compassionate conversation techniques, and collaborative decision-making. Successful discussion is essential to patient outcomes. A med practitioner, who fosters open conversation, can gather more detailed data, increase the likelihood of a more precise diagnosis, and permit appropriate counseling. All of these might improve medical adherence to long-term health-promoting treatment programs. 

Here are some basic recommendations for doctor-patient communication in a virtual practice: 

• Doctors must use patient-centered interviews and compassionate conversation; 
• Doctors should encourage patients to prepare for appointments by writing down their inquiries. Patients should have a form to ask queries before the appointment. The patient’s significant interests can be discussed more easily with the help of a well-organized set of questions; 
• Sessions on gender and cultural sensitivity for doctors and office workers with a communications expert must be regularly scheduled. 

The Office of Minority Health of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has developed the National Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services Standards (CLAS) to advance health equity, enhance quality, and assist in eliminating health care disparities. It could be wise for obstetricians and gynecologists to assess these voluntary standards. 

• Hospitals can recruit non-physicians with experience doing interviews, such as med assistants or senior nurse practitioners;
• When patients return home and have had a chance to process the information from their providers, medical practitioners can check in with them again using a remote health service. Clinicians may check that patients and their families have all the required information, offer extra data, and address any issues with a quick text message or video chat; 
• Doctors may use the same virtual connection tools to offer continuing support and education about illness management to chronically unwell patients. For instance, a primary care physician’s office may connect diabetic patients with nutritionists and other internal resources via video chats while also sending links to informative articles or videos, improving doctor-patient email communication; 
• Long-term practice models that extend the time between virtual visits can be promoted so that many problems with the doctor-patient relationship are addressed. Ample time should be provided for virtual consultations so that there is enough time for interviews with patients, shared decision-making, and patient-physician contact. 

5 Tips for Efficient Patient Communication in Healthcare

How is it best to communicate with patients? Here are five of the most important tips to help you improve communication with patients and build better relationships with them.  

Be patient 

Your patients might not always understand what you’re trying to say, or they might need more time to process things. People who seek your assistance will likely not have any medical background, and it might be harder for them to follow what you’re saying and grasp everything quickly. Don’t rush; let your patients take time and ask questions. It’s okay if they need you to repeat something; you should not make them feel ashamed or stupid just because they are not knowledgeable about the same topic.  

Motivate patients to ask questions 

Communication with patients is most effective when you encourage them to ask questions whenever something is misunderstood. Often, people are too scared of judgment or anger when asking their doctors about anything. However, there is no shaming in asking a medical professional to explain something or repeat what they have already said.  

Tell the truth 

Any patient-doctor relationship should be built on trust, and it doesn’t matter if you see them for the first and last time or if you will have to contact each other daily. Be transparent about risks, possibilities, and challenges, and don’t make any processes, especially those that are hard to keep.  

Make decisions together with your patients  

Communicating with patients involves trust and respect. Every medical expert should be respectful of patients’ preferences and needs and ensure that they take part in their treatment. Instead of choosing what might be best for them, give them a range of options. Let your patients choose what they feel is right.  

Avoid using medical jargon  

To make patients’ communication most effective, avoid using words that are usually known only to medical professionals and other experts in the healthcare industry. Patients are likely to not understand you, especially under all the stress and worries. Use simple language to explain difficult things whenever possible. 

Communication Skills Between Doctor and Patient

The STUDER Group has developed the AIDET communication tool outlining the main principles of patient-clinician conversation and patient satisfaction. It facilitates patient-clinician wires and has been applied in various therapeutic contexts.

Here we gather the main rules and patient communication skills:

Acknowledge:  

• Make eye contact with patients, smile, and say hi. 
• Make them feel valued. 

Introduce: 

• Give your name and position in the doctor-patient introduction. 
• Describe your plan of action and how you will contribute to the process. 
• Pay attention to the patient’s comments. 

Duration:  

• Estimate the duration of the procedure and any potential waiting periods. Inform the patient if the schedule changes. 

Explain:  

• Discuss what you intend to accomplish for or with the patient. Find out if the patient has any questions or concerns. 

Thank You:  

• Thank the patients for their participation and cooperation.

TOP 5 is another method that emphasizes clinician-patient interaction.

The Clinical Excellence Commission adopted a plan that the Central Coast Local Health District had created in collaboration with caregivers at a few hospitals across NSW.

In this method, clinical personnel interacts with caregivers formally. The goal is to learn and write down up to five significant non-clinical management techniques and ideas for individualized care.

• talk to the caregiver;
• obtain knowledge and information;
• personalize the medication plan; 
• provide non-clinical management techniques and advice for individualized care developed by clinical personnel and caregivers. 

So, What Are the Benefits of Professional Physician-Patient Relations?

Establishing rapport, exchanging information, and including patients in decision-making are some objectives of medical discussion. Strong wires make it possible for health care professionals to precisely identify patients’ requirements and expectations. Patients, who feel that their doctor communicates well, report being more satisfied with their medical care and inclined to take advice and follow a recommended course of the health plan.

In the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons Vice Presidential Address, Terry Canale said,

“The patient will never care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

Medical professionals must recall this while dealing with patients. Understanding your patient’s emotional complexity is an incredible place to start if you want a fruitful conversation. Effective doctor-patient contact can offer encouragement, support, reassurance, and incentives to adhere to a recommended course of medication. These components are in danger if this relationship fails.

If, as a pharma company or medical institute, you want to communicate clearly to fellow healthcare professionals and general people, then Viseven can help you provide top-quality content.

Connect with us today!

We, as humanity, have gone a long road in search of an understanding of AI. From the early beginning of the world’s digitalization, the mainstream media taught us that artificial intelligence is a super complicated mechanism that is supposed to cover human existence hurdles, explain the universe’s secrets, start or prevent a global cataclysm, and other significant events. The reality turned out to be more mundane: modern-day neural networks are somehow different from the AI image we are used to. Still, the impact of this technology is much more significant than most of us can think. 

Of course, most people may still think that artificial intelligence is something terrible from Terminator movies rather than their daily social network feed or high art picture generator. What about more complicated cases like the medical and pharmaceutical industries? As niche becomes increasingly digitalized, usages of AI in the pharma industry grow in breadth and depth. 

We analyzed the recent market research and are ready to share it with you. This article will cover the most important areas of AI influence on the pharma industry, including personalized healthcare, drug discovery and manufacturing, clinical trials, and content operations.

What is Artificial Intelligence in the Pharmaceutical Industry?

To understand the impact of AI technology, let’s talk about what kind of technologies are called “AI” in a nutshell and what they are used for. Mainly, technology specialists define three directions:

• Data science algorithms are automated algorithms designed to analyze past activities and create alternative decisions. For example, it can provide a more effective treatment plan or drug combination based on the patient’s clinical data and medical history.
• Machine learning algorithms are a more complicated way of decision-making analysis based on neural network analytics. It works with given datasets to predict decision consequences and categorize and classify information. This is a quick and reliable way to create marketing strategies or conduct clinical trials.
• Deep learning is based on more complicated forms of learning and natural language processing, it is used for more detailed diagnosis. It can analyze sensitive images like skin conditions or radiology scans and combine received data with historical treatment outcomes or other patient-specific information to create the most suitable solution.

The Role of AI in the Pharma and Biotech Markets

AI algorithms and machine learning models have a significant impact on the biotech industry. From life-saving drugs discovery, development, and production to clinical trials, communication, and drug target identification — AI pharmaceutical is a definite game-changer. 

According to The McKinsey Global Institute’s research, the influence of AI and machine learning on the pharma market generated around $100B across the US healthcare system in 2021. 

Here, we are diving deep into the main aspects of AI influence.

Manufacturing Process

Maybe, the first thing that comes to mind, when talking about AI and controlling processes, is manufacturing. AI can help improve processes, which involve many people, from maintenance specialists to quality control and more. 

AI tools can optimize production by taking over the most complicated functionality. It ensures that tasks will be performed very precisely. As well as providing high-quality work, it can analyze the processes, find the weak spots, improve decision making or find areas where it can be streamlined.

Drug Development and Discovery

Drug discovery and development of new drugs is quite an expensive and competitive process for every pharma company. It is highly wired on data science and massive scientific and research datasets. Machine learning in pharma rapidly increases the discovery of new molecules. AI can research and cross-reference published scientific materials with alternative resources, including clinical trial results, to develop drugs and discover new effective treatment methods for rare diseases. 

As any new particular drug should be approved before becoming a consumable product, pharmaceutical companies must conduct research and drug trials during drug discovery. The use of artificial intelligence in the pharmaceutical industry allows us to perform and automate the QA process and ensure high standards of the drug development process and value chain. It helps to improve the production process reducing the chance of domestic issues, reducing development spending during the drug discovery process, and increasing drug adherence.

Diagnostic Assistance and Personalized Treatment

Regarding diagnosis of particular disease, artificial intelligence in pharma and biotech becomes an inevitable tool to apply a data-driven approach, process volumes of sensitive patient data, and deliver personalized treatment based on the most accurate analysis and calculations. Especially it is important during rare diseases diagnostics. Thanks to AI in pharmacy and healthcare, doctors have much more opportunities to provide the patient with fast and precise results of complicated medical examinations and offer them precision medicine. 

Another good example is the Chinese tech giant Tencent. They teamed up with a British healthcare firm, Medopad, to create AI software that reduces the diagnosis time for Parkinson’s Disease by ten times — from 30 minutes to 3 minutes. 

Apart from gathering and processing supersensitive information, modern AI technologies can manage clinical data storage and organization. A specifically tuned neural network can keep data secure and manage electronic medical records (EMR) to store patients’ sensitive information and treatment records.

Clinical Trials

One of the most vital things that AI influences is clinical trials. Clinical trials are always something related to significant amounts of different information. It becomes harder to process clinical trial data manually since data becomes more complicated yearly, and the risk of human error increases. This is where AI handles big data arrays without breaking a sweat. 

Many pharma businesses rely on identifying the right candidate for clinical trials on AI. The technology can collect and process data such as existing diseases of the targeted audience, demographic specifics, rate of infection, and other overlapping factors to represent the right testing group and conduct a successful drug trial. It significantly improves drug adherence and repurposing options.

Content Operations

Artificial intelligence has transformed how businesses in pharma and life sciences work with content at a large scale. Today, companies of all sizes, from small agencies to big enterprises, explore and implement AI in the pharmaceutical industry to optimize each content operation: production, management, editing, planning, localization, search, and delivery.

At Viseven, we’ve integrated a series of pharmaceutical machine learning services to eWizard content experience platform to help customers leverage their content operations and reduce resources necessary for large-scale content marketing at multiple markets worldwide. eWizard allows companies to instantly translate text, easily convert audio into text, quickly find the needed content in enormous data bases, and deliver personalized content to the right customer at the right time and via the right platform.

Using AI in Pharma Marketing

Our industry is hard-wired to sales-driven factors, and digital marketing aims to develop unique marketing strategies and increase revenue and brand awareness. This is where the use of artificial intelligence changes the perception of the game and helps companies to stay on top.

Artificial intelligence in pharma industry can compare the results of past marketing campaigns to identify the most profitable ones. It helps to analyze any marketing activity and how they affect the audience to create the most efficient strategy for your subsequent customer journeys. Based on different patient outcomes and data, it can predict the success or failure of varying engagement methods within a particular campaign.

The Benefits of Artificial Intelligence for Pharma Companies

Year by year, pharma companies face more complicated challenges each time we reach another level of digitalization. As the amount of information about our daily activities and health only grows, pharma and life science industries are looking for more advanced and decision-making solutions.  

The opportunity of AI technology leaves no other alternative but to join digitalization and ensure pharma’s most vital processes are in their “hands”. It will make different aspects of your pharma business more effective and innovative and optimize your resource spending. 

The use of AI solutions made a significant impact on decision-making, creating innovations for patient’s health, remote patient monitoring, and conducting medical research. Also, artificial intelligence pharmaceutical automation allows your company to perform predictive maintenance and quality control of drug combinations. 

There’s no sign of this trend slowing down — on the contrary, about 50 percent of global healthcare companies plan to implement AI strategies and broadly adopt the technology by 2025. 

Let’s talk about improving your pharma business and brand — fill out the form below, and our expert will contact you soon.

It is always nice to summarize your year’s achievements and personal wins right around Christmastime when the year is almost over. Here at Viseven, we had a very busy year, with so many challenges that we had to face, so many new ideas and features to deliver, and so many events to visit. At the same time, Viseven never misses an opportunity to share our findings and insights with colleagues and clients in our blogs, during live webinar sessions with top industry experts, and, of course, at global events.

We believe it would be hard to outline all of our activities in 2022, so we’ll try to focus on the very best things that happened to Viseven this year.

New Locations and New Faces

In 2022 Viseven finally launched a long-awaited overseas office in the LatAm region, namely in Argentina. For Viseven, this means we can facilitate our client services in the Americas and enhance the production cycle by implementing some elements of the follow-the-sun model, sharing responsibilities between overseas departments. And, of course, we are happy to welcome a new Argentinian team to Viseven, already having big plans concerning expanding our presence in the American markets.

Top Pharma Events of 2022

As COVID-19-related restrictions are becoming less severe, international live events have finally managed to host MarTech experts from all over the globe. In 2022 we were lucky to visit some of the biggest annual conferences for digital marketers and MarTech innovators.  

Check out our CEO Nataliya Andreychuk at Collision Conference in Toronto in June. Also, throughout the year, we participated in prominent pharmaceutical events like: 

• Digital Pharma East in Philadelphia,  
• Next Pharma Summit in Dubrovnik,  
• Reuters Pharma in Nice,  
• Veeva Commercial Summits in Boston and Madrid, and many others.  

Learn more about our past and upcoming events here. 

Top Publications and Pharma Webinars of the Year

Here at Viseven, we know how important it is to collaborate with other experts to share our thoughts and knowledge during webinars and deliver some of our brightest insights via our blog and partner media outlets.

We hosted an excellent knowledge-sharing session on How to measure KPIs in pharma by our Omnichannel Excellence Expert – Pavel Klymenko. He also shared his knowledge on how to build HCP engagement with AI-based Omnichannel Approach in a very insightful session. Both webinars can be viewed on our YouTube page. 

Our CEO Nataliya Andreychuk took part in a lively conversation on Digital disruption in Pharma in the APAC region with experts from TCS and Roche. Nataliya also joined Campana & Schott as well as Bayer for a riveting conversation on modular content. Feel free to go to Viseven’s YouTube channel to view these and other webinars Nataliya was a part of. 

Speaking of our CEO, it was a very busy summer for her. From a talk on digital marketing trends with Fierce Pharma’s Stephanie Butler as part of their Digital Pharma Week to a podcast with MM+M on how to lead a successful business during a crisis. Nataliya also was a panelist at Reuters Pharma Europe and joined Forbes Agency Council, where she regularly commented on hot digital marketing trends and published her blog posts. 

Viseven also hosted a great masterclass in partnership with Next Pharma on modular content and how it will help pharma companies and marketers reach their goals, targets, and KPIs. 

Nataliya also gave an in-depth interview to Pharma Phorum and was profiled in their Deep Dive magazine. 

And remember Pavel Klymenko? His article on Omnichannel approaches was published in Pharmaceutical Executive and European Pharmaceutical Manufacturer. Pavel also wrote a blog post for Pharma Leaders. 

Viseven also published several key case studies and of course, plenty of exciting content on our blog. 

2022 was not an easy year for us, Ukraine was brutally attacked by russia on February 24, and that certainly made an impact on us, but we believe in Ukraine’s victory and a bright future ahead for the country we are so close to. 

Looking forward to 2023!

Our team is certainly looking forward to completing big projects and creating great content in the upcoming year. We all feel excited about the new services and solutions we will deploy in 2023.

As always, our clients can expect top-notch customer service and attentiveness to detail. And, of course, there will be many vast ventures in terms of our partnerships.

Viseven team keeps pushing the boundaries of the tech industry for pharma, coming up with new and more sophisticated ways to build communication in the MarTech area. So, to keep tabs on all our activities, events, news, and blog posts – let’s stay connected in 2023.

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We wish you a very Happy Holiday Season and a Peaceful and Prosperous New Year! Season’s Greetings from Viseven!

While healthcare aims to increase patient outcomes, Pharma is looking forward to means beyond randomized clinical trials (RCTs) to assess and promote the value they produce. 

Pharma real-world evidence (RWE) has been in practice for decades; nevertheless, advances in digital technologies and analytics offer a new way to apply it. It gives us insight into how patient characteristics and behavior affect outcomes. Thereby, it helps to predict the course progress of the disease, a patient’s response to therapies, or the risk of adverse events. Also, it makes R&D (Research and Development) investments more efficient and accelerates time-to-market. 

If any company deploys advanced pharma RWE analytics, success will rely on the proper framework and capabilities chosen. So, further below, we will disclose more info on the nature of real-world evidence in the pharmaceutical landscape. 

What Is Real-World Evidence in Pharma?

To understand medical RWE (real-world evidence) and its role in healthcare, we should first understand RWD (real-world data). 

Pharma real-world data is any data gathered in routine care delivery taking its place contrary to the data collected from traditional clinical trials where the system controls variability; therefore, it does not represent real-world care and outcomes. There are many different types and real-world data sources, such as 

• clinical data from electronic health records (EHRs) and case report forms (eCRFs); 
• patient-generated data from the patient-reported outcome (PRO) surveys; 
• cost and utilization data from claims and public datasets provide information regarding healthcare services utilization, population coverage, and prescribing patterns; 
• public health data from various government data sources. 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) characterizes RWE as “the clinical evidence regarding the usage and potential benefits or risks of a medical product derived from real-world data analysis.” 

What Is the Difference Between Real-World Data and Real-World Evidence?

Real-world data presents value only when it’s converted into other formats. RWD is raw data that demonstrates the individuals’ experiences and characteristics, while real-world evidence can already be used for decision-making and other processes since it comes directly from RWD analysis. In essence, real-world evidence is created based on real-world data, which is why both often come together, instead of each being used separately. 

Why Do We Need RWE in Pharma?

There’s a gap between research (what we learn) and everyday clinical practice (what we do) in healthcare, and it creates dissimilarity between what is anticipated to come and what we really get. 

What happens is worth our concern. What has happened before, during, and after clinical treatments, interventions, and HCP live visits is the reality we stay in to drive measurable enhancements in healthcare. 

RWE is meant to eliminate those gaps and keep us from going astray. It shows actual data on what happens when physicians treat several patients that do not appear in the homogeneous patient groups in traditional clinical trials. RWE in healthcare provides information on how therapies and treatments will fare in real-life settings, enabling doctors to anticipate the outcomes of new medications and various approaches. In contrast to clinical trials, which are frequently confined to specific criteria, real-world evidence encompasses aspects that might have gone unnoticed or been discovered too late. 

That is why RWE has many uses and advantages across healthcare ecosystems. 

Why Is Real-World Evidence Important?

It helps to comprehend how a new treatment innovation will behave in the real world rather than within classic randomized trials alone. While RCTs remain the general rule in approving new medical therapies, they often do not show the full picture. Standard RCTs cover a small segment of patients and test treatments in a controlled environment. Moreover, they are costly and time-consuming. 

Using real-world evidence, we can improve our understanding of what works for different types of patients in a broader context. It allows researchers to study the safety and effectiveness of drug treatments and other interventions and consider other factors and variables. In addition, RWE generation is more cost-effective and can be more intelligent than standard randomized clinical trials. 

Healthcare RWE can provide insight into how treatments work in specific patient subsets that may not have been encountered in RCTs. For instance, with RWE, researchers can study how therapy innovations work for patients with comorbidities, certain age groups, or certain socio-demographic groups. Real-world evidence can also provide what happens to the patient throughout life when isolated data from the randomized clinical trial period cannot be found. 

Use of Real-World Evidence in Pharmaceutical Companies

Pharmaceutical companies have been using real data for decades to make informed decisions, respond to external stakeholders’ requests, and improve their drugs’ market position. Recently, growing acceptance from regulators, demand from payers and physicians, and greater familiarity with digital and analytics have enabled some companies to reap much broader benefits from real-world evidence.

Big Pharma Has Already Benefited From It

Examples include Pfizer’s use of electronic medical record (EMR) data to obtain approval to treat male breast cancer and AstraZeneca’s use of real-world data to demonstrate the effectiveness of its diabetes treatment against competitors.  

 Is Real-World Evidence a Growing Challenge for Pharma?

No matter how obvious it may sound, RWE is used across the entire healthcare system. From the physician’s office that logs the data to the register, life science researchers who operate with it throughout their studies to health plans, regulators, payers, and policy creators. So, it has a vast impact on the whole spectrum.  

• Life Science Research

As traditional randomized clinical trials give out isolated data that does not deal with real-world life, science specialists and biopharmaceutical companies are significant stakeholders of RWE. It complements RCTs by providing additional insights into daily medication use in clinical care, considering the safety and efficacy of innovative therapies.  

• Policy Makers and Regulators

The subject allows for monitoring aftermath safety and adverse events; therefore, it provides support regulatory decision-making. Operating with real-world evidence essentially affects the base for medication approvals and drug development acceleration. 

• Health Plans and Payers

Safety monitoring, utilization management, and cost/value analysis are elements that health plans and payers derive from RWE affecting studies that inform pharmacy and therapeutic (P&T) committee decisions. Anyway, RCTs will stay necessary for payer decision-making; nevertheless, they begin to often appeal to RWE for better validation because they need to comprehend how the use of medicines impacts value-based care outcomes.

Additionally, they use RWE to assess pharmaceuticals and other therapies’ cost-effectiveness.

• Physicians and Healthcare Providers

Applying RWE to clinicians is more indirect than for other healthcare stakeholders. First, healthcare providers can use the clinical guidelines developed by RWE. Insights from real-world evidence can help care teams understand the disease and help inform treatment decisions. So they enable physicians to create more targeted and appropriate treatment plans for their patients.

RWE is only as good as the RWD used to create it. Physicians and other healthcare providers are vital to the data collection process. During an appointment with a patient, physicians typically use electronic health record (EHR) systems to enter structured clinical data such as diagnoses, scheduled laboratory tests with results, and prescribed medications. In addition, providers submit applications to payers who offer another source of RWD. This data can then be de-identified and used to obtain RWE.

Life Sciences Real-World Evidence and Viseven

Viseven helps organizations gain real insight into the world from the point of care throughout the patient journey. Our innovative solutions enable our customers to find timely, actionable real-world data to improve patient care and outcomes and can help you demonstrate how your products can benefit patient health.

You can contact us anytime if you require any assistance by filling contact form below.

Jay Rabheru, Head of Marketing, Agency Services, Life Science and Healthcare, Tata Consultancy Services, about the evolution of pharma marketing: 

The most prominent subjects that display the look and feel of pharma marketing today are the saturation of multichannel marketing strategy and the maturing state of omnichannel marketing.  

What does it mean?

We’re no longer finding that marketing is just a case of utilizing various engagement channels and hoping that that’s a good enough experience because that’s what multichannel marketing was focused on. Now the experiences need to be orchestrated across channels. So, journeys should be started in one place, continued in another, and ended in some third place. And that’s what actual omnichannel experience is; the end user demand that they get that seamless experience across the channels. 

We must recognize that almost everyone from pharma marketers’ target audience is consumers. They are also customers of services from Amazon, Google, Facebook, and others. And consequently, they also expect service from their pharma ecosystem. 

So that’s where pharma should be focused on. A recent pandemic has accelerated a bit more, but still, it requires a certain standard from the digital experience. 

Dr. Geetha Thiagarajan, CTO Life Sciences and Healthcare business unit, Tata Consultancy Services, about customer demand for personalization 

Customers always run their show; there’s no doubt about it. But we see the increasing need for customers to forge an ecosystem of partnerships, innovate at scale, and be a part of the market. And if you look at the pharma business, in particular, it has been traditionally a little close to forming partnerships. From AI-based drug discovery to running virtual cohorts for clinical trials or doing continuous manufacturing instead of batch manufacturing, from launching a project effectively to doing real-world tickets, there is technology penetration all along the value chain. 

It makes sense for pharma businesses to have technology partners rather than reinvent all of this. We see many opportunities across the value chain. Traditionally, we have witnessed medical reps talking to HCPs, eDetailers, mobile devices, or branded websites in pharma marketing. But what are we talking about now? 

We are talking now about targeted messages to HCPs and having self-service digital assistance. Any evolutions need targeted and personalized messaging across different channels. This kind of personalization is different from the core business of pharma. There’s no point in reinventing these things because this is where partnership makes much sense, and it is happening. 

Puneet Srivastava, Head of Digital Content and Services Lab at Roche, about approaches and how they changed in terms of disruption 

The change was already happening if you look at the pharmaceutical customers in general. There was an extreme need for tech companies or pharma companies to look at that marketing chain. The change I’m talking about is the reduced attention span. People are looking to consume content across various channels. They are not bothered whether you send an email, or you put Twitter. And I think one of my panelists said in the beginning that you must be consistent across these channels. 

Now with the pandemic, the whole access to the healthcare ecosystem was limited or even blocked. We could not even reach our doctors. How can you get into remote engagements? If we take all the digital channels, how can you orchestrate them? Part of the debate has changed completely, from “shall we do digital” to “how fast can we get into this digital omnichannel”? 

So HCP expectations from pharma companies are tenfold — “hey, give me something extremely personalized, do not actually bother me with an email chain, et cetera, which you think is right, but rather understand me better so that you can talk to me in a helping way.”  The new generation of doctors is looking for much more advanced things than “hey, give me on-call service et cetera.” More likely, they question and ask for the information and have a 2-3 hours response time. 

I think we are following these concerns and learning as we are doing. But what I want to highlight is that there are so many different elements to make such a thing. This is the backbone of today’s topic and will be a fundamental enabler to things happening from a pharmacy perspective. 

Nataliya Andriychuk, CEO of, Viseven, about pharma marketing implementation struggles  

I would say no one has completely fixed the problem yet. So to ensure we are all in progress, we are all in the process of working with it. 

Content here is the key to servicing this approach of omnichannel and personalization because this is how we want our brands to become closer to the consumers. Pharma is not unique because we are more obligated to make our brand closer to the customers. This is not just a question of liking or non-liking; it is a question of life and well-being. That’s why the question of content is so important. This service machine, built around our key message materials, must be very adjusted to all the omnichannel strategies we have. Previously, we used the content like the complete piece of material, and all the metadata was related to the entire material without recognizing the different and meaningful details. 

It is challenging today to take outside of this content a kind of data about every person who will be consuming it separately. So here the modular approach comes, and we need to understand that going into the modular approach, we have a lot of homework to do. We create structured, well-categorized content, where we have to tag it manually or automatically, and we create a whole taxonomy structure. 

And then all the technology will be applied to it. 

Because if it is not machine-readable, then the problem of scaling this approach would be the biggest we will receive. Today, no one doubts that we all can try modular content; we all can build a module, and we understand that it is a meaningful piece with no format and can be used across channels. But once we decide to scale it, we all understand that it has to be machine-readable. This is where we need to go from to imply every technology we have. 

Watch the entire webinar to learn more about the implementation of modular content, specialties of today’s pharma marketing, and the APAC region in particular.

Medical affairs in Pharma are often seen as an essential department within a healthcare company that prioritizes communication among life science organizations, medical professionals, healthcare providers, and patients. Its primary function is communicating scientific and clinical information to the medical community through various channels. 

These medical affairs teams derive their value from high-profile medical expertise and provide efficient evidence of pharmaceutical products and medical devices. Team experts also impart details related to educational opportunities to the learners and improve their qualifications for eligibility to enter med affairs teams. 

Moreover, the educators of medical affairs instruct healthcare professionals through their scientific knowledge and clinical experience.

What Are Pharmaceutical Medical Affairs?

A medical affair is a pharmaceutical or medical company department that communicates the correct information about the drug or medical device to doctors, other medical practitioners and healthcare providers.

For instance, medical affairs instruct the applications of a drug to potential healthcare companies after going through clinical cases. Medical affairs definition uses clinical and scientific information to communicate the efficiency of a drug.

The pharmaceutical medical affairs department officials include professionals with masters or doctorate degrees in pharmaceuticals. They instruct the applications of a drug to potential healthcare subscribers as soon as it is circulated in the market. They describe its use through a scientific and clinical approach by means of medical science liaisons. That is why the personnel working in medical affairs departments are known to be experts and leaders in the medical science field.

They provide information about the following:

• Off-label usage

• Publications

• Safety information

• Independent medical education

What Does a Medical Affairs Professional Do?

Under its internal affairs, the pharmaceutical ones bring together the research and commercial wings of the pharma businesses. Medical affairs teams analyze and translate important details on therapeutics and drugs into an easy language for better understanding. Any healthcare experts and sales representatives can then grasp these details without a scientific background. 

There are also additional responsibilities of these teams, which include:

• Conducting non-registered clinical trials after the FDA approval of a drug. 

• They also execute drug outcome studies and support healthcare brands. 

What Are Careers in Medical Affairs?

There are many different medical affairs roles that require specific skills and qualifications. Here are some pharmaceutical affairs professionals that are currently in demand: 

Medical science liaison 

Medical science liaison, or MSL, is a specialist with wide-ranging roles and responsibilities. Their main task is to furnish medical or pharmaceutical companies with knowledge on the services, devices, or products of their employer. Medical science liaisons often attend events related to their field, consult with healthcare professionals, make sure that products and services are utilized in a correct way, and build relationships with stakeholders. In other words, medical science liaisons represent their company and provide knowledge on what their employer offers. 

Scientific advisor  

The job of a scientific advisor is to consult companies and professionals on treatment tools, drugs, and other topics. Often scientific advisors work closely with teams that are responsible for research and development and build strong relationships with the medical community. 

Medical affairs manager 

The responsibilities of a medical affairs manager include working with stakeholders, sharing their scientific knowledge, developing a medical affairs strategy, supervising different projects, and designing campaigns based on the company’s goals and vision. 

How to get into medical affairs? Every medical affairs company requires the candidates to have at least a master’s degree or higher. Experts who work in medical affairs must have enough knowledge and expertise to understand patients and doctors and assist companies in building a bridge between both sides. Moreover, it’s a common practice for companies to demand some level of experience in healthcare or related fields to ensure that candidates are well-versed in industry-specific knowledge. 

The Role of Medical Affairs in Pharmaceutical Companies

The medical affairs department has many roles and responsibilities. It must bridge medical scientists and healthcare product manufacturers. 

The officials of medical affairs departments are increasingly playing the central role of creating coordination among the internal teams for attributes such as commercial, market access, regulatory, clinical development, implementation, and drug safety. 

These teams clearly convey their concerns about the company data and consistently educate on it. Besides these regular pharma medical affairs, its functions can also cover reorienting preclinical research. For this purpose, marketers create special medical affairs strategies. These strategies aim to facilitate trials that investigators initiate based on their predefined areas of interest. 

These strategies would enable the identification of new targets. It will also facilitate accessible developments in future clinical trials and increase knowledge about patients. 

In recent years, continuous regulatory norms have driven the importance of forming medical affairs teams. Many of the responsibilities on the regulatory team have been shifted to medical affairs. Many of the responsibilities include-  

• Updating policies: Relevant drug and device-related information must be updated regularly to deliver valuable medical information.  
• Framing training programs: The increased use of MSLs or regional medical liaisons to engage in scientific exchange with healthcare providers requires comprehensive policies and training of sales and marketing employees. 
• Monitoring MSL employees: As the use of MSLs increases, the compliance issues surrounding these practices increase as well because MSLs must be assessed to ensure they remain compliant with the regulations affecting scientific communication.   
• Planning the overall budget: Planning the overall budget to contain the development of new therapies and medical devices is another challenge, according to Medical Affairs Resources, Structures & Trends in primary research conducted by Best Practices. 

The researchers also explained that these advanced treatments are pressuring governments to allocate budgets accurately to new therapies and technologies budgeting. 

What Is the Function of Pharma Medical Affairs Today?

What do affairs teams do in Pharma? Medical affairs experts represent pharmaceutical companies and facilitate them in maintaining the flow of information within the medical communities. During their interactions, these communities learn about a particular healthcare product’s market status. 

The following are the main functions of medical affairs in pharmaceutical industries: 

• Conducting a rough clinical trial: They are responsible for additional clinical trials by non-registered medical affairs professionals.  
• Analyzing health economics and outcomes: These officials conduct studies on healthcare economics and outcomes from a drug. This study is done to evaluate the results of using a medicine. The main idea behind the study is to estimate the medical cost of a drug and observe the quality of a patient’s life after using the drug.  
• Assisting a brand in creating a healthcare product: Helping the brand team in formulating pharma medical strategy. 
• Assessing clinical trial proposals: The officials review proposals for clinical trials that independent investigators prepare. 
• Representing a publishing plan: Defining a publication plan for each product and coordinating clinical and scientific communication at medical conferences rests with the medical affairs team. 
• Maintaining healthy relationships with top leaders: Pharma medical affairs professionals nurture relationships with key stakeholders such as healthcare practitioners and academic researchers.  

• Organizing educational programs: Sponsoring healthcare practitioners’ education programs was in pharma medical affairs’ hands. They support the internal training programs. 
• Reporting the latest news and insights related to pharmaceutical industries: The medical affairs team is almost like any other industry vertical PR team. They are abreast of the latest happenings within the industry, not just of their organization but of their competitors too.  

How Do Medical Affairs Impact the Pharmaceutical Industry?

Today, medical affairs teams hold great significance within pharmaceutical businesses. They are marking their presence felt due to their collaborative characters. 

These teams are much more collaborative than working in isolation, allowing their expertise to have a wider impact within the medical fraternity. New medical affairs employment opportunities are also rising, indicating a revolution in pharmaceutical industries.

For example, an increasing number of medical sales liaisons in the industry are shaping pharmaceutical companies perfectly enough to remain at the edge of the competition and highly advanced in the upcoming novel treatments. 

The medical affairs team’s contribution has a far-reaching impact on patient care. They are also helping to lead the pharma industry into a new age of scientific development and open collaboration.

How Can Pharmaceuticals Improve Medical Communication Affairs?

Improving medical communication is extremely important for a pharmaceutical company as it needs to translate complex science into layman’s language. 

Thus, medical information and communication professionals make use of data and insights and support medical affairs departments for:

• Leveraging communicative plans

• Managing the publication of new information

• Engaging with experts and thought leaders

• Providing medical education

• Facilitating internal communication

• Organizing and managing HCP events and advisory boards

Many products and devices fail to reach the market because of safety concerns and improper communication. Therefore, it is vital to implement successful medical communication plans throughout the product lifecycle. 

These plans are necessary to include the right stakeholders. Ensuring the right stakeholders can lead to adequate scientific dialogue. 

Evolving New Ways of Medical Information and Communication

Increased scope of activities & exposure

Communicating medical information not only involves interacting with external stakeholders and maintaining up-to-date information on medical news. The report additionally includes-

• Reviews of a promotional interview

• Developments in in-field roles

• Creating product launch tool kits

• Framing education and training materials

• Setting up medical information booths

• Preparing conference presentations and posters

• Verification of content on product-specific and company-sponsored websites

• Publications 

• Organizing clinical trial activities

Digitalization of medical information

 Several digital channels other than emails and phone calls are emerging for effective communication. Examples of novel digital channels for healthcare systems are-

• Self-service portals 

• Video-conferencing

• Social media platforms such as Twitter

• Online chatbots

• Voice search is also an emerging trend among different channels. 

These additional means of interaction are expected to expand medical and scientific information transformation with patients and related officers. 

Simplifying verbal communication amid heightened industry demands

The rise of difficult-to-communicate therapies and personalized increased the need for improved communication. It has also become important for success in the pharmaceutical industry.

As a result of these developments, companies are trying to manage contact centers and create accurate response documents effectively. 

Delivering meaningful insights to the industry

A deep insight into medical information activities enables companies to shape the treatment journey of their patients. It also helps them to reduce the hurdles that come up in the way of getting marketing approvals.  

The companies will also be able to identify new patients for clinical trials and even engage with the right key opinion leaders by analyzing their inquiries, which is undeniable. 

Most importantly, they identify trending topics and provide opinions, insights, and metrics to measure content quality usage metrics to reveal the need to address safety, efficiency, or quality issues before the time ends. 

Also, they determine the highly impacted areas that focus on the potentiality of medical education, re-training, or product needs (e.g., formulation change).

Conclusion

Medical affairs in the pharmaceutical industry are frequently observed as supporters of companies. That is why responsibilities are increasingly being transferred from the regulatory departments of this department. Its responsibilities also encompass research in the medical field and communicating the data collected among concerned authorities. 

We live during times marking the paradigm shift from an environment dominated by commercial and marketing interests towards a new dimension in the advancing medical field. Medical knowledge and patients are being centrally focused along with successfully commercializing the prepared drugs. 

If you are looking for an expert communication channel for all medical and life science-related topics, get in touch with the experts at Viseven by filling contact form below.

When it comes to special events for the whole IT industry, it is always all about Web Summit. Year by year, it becomes a place where most of the digital industry enthusiasts and visioners meet each other to share expertise and knowledge. This time, it wasn’t an exception, and here we will make a short recap of the event’s most valuable moments.

So, Web Summit 2022 gathered around 70,000 people worldwide, and more than a thousand attendees were from Ukraine. It wasn’t without reason — at the beginning of the conference, Olena Zelenska, First Lady of Ukraine, gave a powerful speech about the importance of Ukrainian cyber defense support in the face of a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

As pharma becomes increasingly digital, Viseven is always on top of offering a solution. So, the eWizard team has joined the event to showcase the multichannel content management platform. This platform helps plan, brief, create, modularize, build, translate, approve and deploy (distribute) brand content at scale. The team dedicated most of the showcase time to eWizard functionality and USP for digital and content agencies. 

As we have mentioned, Web Summit is no longer an IT-only event, and other companies from different industries, including Pharmaceuticals, Life sciences, were presented at the event. It gave us Web Summit’s most important and pleasant moments by meeting our customers in an informal atmosphere.

“The world has changed, and we have changed with it. So, I am certainly looking forward to the conversation on how we can improve the gig economy as we look toward a future that is driven by individuals rather than large corporations.” — Yuliya Sotska, Viseven’s Head of PR and moderator of “Can we improve the gig economy” panel.

The importance of partnership is hard to underestimate. Making connections means gaining more knowledge, expertise, and resources to create better service, reach a greater audience and help as many people as possible to achieve their goals. This thesis correlates with Viseven’s slogan —”saving lives by improving communication,” and once again proves that by being united, we are capable of much more than we think. 

So, we can’t wait to see you next year!

The drug industry is highly regulated, and its products and offerings have far-reaching impacts on the public’s health and well-being. From the ideation stage to the marketing of the drugs, the pharma market employs medical experts, researchers, and thought leaders. These professionals are known as key opinion leaders (KOLs) in the pharma industry. 

Key opinion leaders play a critical role in the life sciences industry – pharmaceutical companies often engage them during clinical trials and drug commercialization. However, given the current regulatory approval challenges, many pharma companies seek to collaborate with KOLs medical throughout the entire drug development cycle. The role of KOL in pharma is pivotal as they provide invaluable insights that help manufacturers navigate the regulatory landscape and bring credibility during the marketing phase. 

Who are Key Opinion Leaders in Pharma?

Key opinion leaders in pharma provide valuable feedback about new medicines. They are experienced physicians who help shape how a new medication is marketed and its features. They have become invaluable in the drug industry. 

Many healthcare professionals opt to become a key opinion leader (KOL) because it allows them to share and increase their knowledge about the latest innovations, better treat their patients, widen their professional circle, and receive handsome compensation. 

KOLs can be a valuable source of knowledge for patients and ensure that patients receive the best treatment possible.  

Potential and Expertise

KOLs have the potential to reach peers and patients from all over the world. This global perspective helps create other KOL engagement and management activities. Working with KOLs allows you to create referral networks and connect new patients, regardless of location or affiliation. 

A KOL’s expertise can help in making a successful clinical treatment. In some cases, a KOL may be the one who coordinates the clinical trials and keeps everything organized, especially when there are multiple study sites involved. Having such a physician on board can help ensure that the process of clinical trial runs smoothly and successfully. 

The Role of KOLs in the Pharma Market

Key opinion leader is regarded as the mastermind in the pharma industry. They’ve put in the time and research to be recognized by their peers as experts in their field. As a result, they have gained a reputation as a thought leader within their specific niche. Their expert opinions and actions can significantly affect the adoption of a new product/brand or the ability to influence consumer purchasing decisions. 

Key opinion leaders in healthcare are sort of like the avengers of the clinical research world. They can fill many different roles, and their skill sets are highly sought after by those in the know. A key opinion leader can be critically important in helping to educate physicians about a new drug. They can provide information about the working of drugs, which patient demographics can benefit the most, and what treatment regimens are most effective. KOLs can also offer their unique insights as early adopters of new therapies, which can help to identify and create brand acceptance in healthcare. 

Additionally, pharma brands strive to engage with KOLs with extensive expertise in their target therapeutic areas to assist them in participant recruitment for clinical trials and data analysis. These leaders help to identify the unmet needs of both physicians and patients, allowing companies to produce more effective drugs with less side effects. Besides, KOLs have influence over the medical community and therefore can help companies boost their marketing efforts.  

How to Identify KOLs in Pharma?

Correctly evaluating a KOL’s influence and expertise is crucial to developing successful pharma initiatives that engage them. You could use key factors to gauge a KOL’s strength and involvement, including the breadth and depth of their participation, brand adoption, and behaviors. 

• Area of expertise

Before engaging with KOLs, it is imperative to learn about their area of expertise. Do they participate in panel discussions? Have they ever worked in hospices or emergency care? Do they have hands-on experience working with older adults? What kind of academic achievements are they known for? The first thing to do on your list should be to understand their clinical and research interests and contributions

• Knowledge about critical medicine

A KOL in healthcare can be experts in complex conditions associated with increased chances of relapses. For instance, diagnosing and treating such chronic conditions as endometriosis is a time-consuming journey for patients, often involving surgery. However, thought leaders can offer valuable insights, aiding gynecologists in understanding innovative treatments and expediting the recovery process. 

• Influence over the local and global medical community

Some KOLs might offer treatment themselves or receive patient referrals from all over the world. Collaborating with these experts can be incredibly advantageous, extending the reach and impact of marketing campaigns. 

• Openness to adopting new innovations and practices

If you need to improve your drug development or clinical trial process, you might want to connect with KOLs that are early adopters of innovative approaches and treatments. This type of KOLs usually do not shy away from participating in clinical studies and are eager to get involved in early drug assessments. This way, they have a critical role in getting first approvals of medicines and expediting time-to-market.

• Expertise in conducting clinical trials

Pharma companies may also seek KOLs that could refer patients to participate in clinical trials. Their role cannot be underestimated when there are multiple study sites in the trial process. Moreover, they can implement investigator-initiated trials to test alternative approaches to using certain medicines. 

KOL Identification and Mapping 

Before a company can start working with leadership, they must identify which experts have a sphere of influence within their area of interest. To do this, organizations track healthcare professionals who regularly speak at scientific meetings and medical congresses. 

They also monitor medical practitioners whose work is published in respected journals and who are frequently cited by media outlets as clinical experts.

KOL identification and mapping are like finding a needle in a haystack. It’s a quantitative way to locate physician leaders who influence the medical community. It’s about finding HCP leaders with the most influence within the pharmaceutical industry.

KOL mapping is vital for pharmaceutical companies because it allows them to weed out physicians who don’t meet their requirements. This categorization process is done based on factors like location, specialty domain, and influence that help these manufacturers collaborate with the most influential person in that vertical.

Why are Key Opinion Leaders Important to Pharma Companies?

Key opinion leaders in healthcare have a lot of experience, making them influential in their community. That means that KOLs could help create awareness for a new drug and can also be beneficial for pharmaceutical companies to generate turnover and increase sales.  

KOLs help organizations to make precise decisions while purchasing new medicines – like how a rock star’s opinion makes their fans buy more merch from a band they love. 

A KOL in the pharma industry plays an integral strategic role as they help manufacturers to have the desired impact with their target audience since they help bring credibility. They can also help companies by providing buy-in at a hospital or health network. 

KOL Engagement in Pharma

Thought leaders engagement in pharma is beneficial for companies because it allows them to generate data, refine strategy and create persuasive medical and promotional content with the help of an expert. KOL relationships are built on trust and a mutual need for long-term cooperation. 

From this perspective, if a company does not take the time to ask questions internally about what an individual KOL needs, it will not have anyone to speak up for the company’s interests in the relationship.

Build Trusted Relationships With Thought Leadership in Healthcare

Product managers are under a lot of pressure to make decisions quickly. However, by forming relationships with respected experts in various medical divisions, they can gain invaluable ideas that will help them make better decisions and shape their businesses more effectively. 

Thus, KOLs offer their expertise throughout the product life cycles and development, among other things. They can share it via various communication channels like live conferences or social media. In other words, using KOL in pharma marketing can be a powerful tool to popularize their product.

If you’re in the health science and medical market, you know that effective KOL management is important to your success and business. After all, engaging the right healthcare thought leaders can make or break your drug development efforts.

KOL management is constantly evolving, so companies must look for new and better ways to interact with key opinion leaders. But if you can stay ahead of the curve, you’ll be in an excellent position to succeed and increase sales.

Effectiveness of KOL Management

When KOLs are managed well, they can hugely impact a drug product’s success – from the early stages of discovery and research to when it hits the market. You can see the benefits in more persuasive medical and marketing materials, quicker patient recruitment for trials, more vital consumer awareness, and even influencing prescribing behaviors. In other words, managed KOLs can be a real game-changer.

When a pharmaceutical company and a Key Opinion Leader work together successfully, it’s a win-win situation. The company gets valuable insights from an expert, and the Key Opinion Leader gets opportunities for networking and professional development, not to mention the chance to share ideas and learn from others. Go ahead and gather conferences, webinars or create a blog article for social media to combine your brand message with thought leaders influence.

Conclusion

The meaning of KOL in pharma is like the megaphone of the clinical trial world. They help get the word out about trial results and outcomes, which are essential for successful market access and eventual drug product adoption. Consequently, they know the best language to communicate trial outcomes and the most effective platforms to disseminate information to healthcare professionals and patient communities. 

Moreover, when they serve as principals or even sub-investigators in clinical trials, they naturally boost the visibility of the trials to their peers and other decision-makers in the healthcare sector. It helps both boosting high-quality pharma brands and involve more experts to the hottest topics.

Learn how to engage Key Opinion Leaders in your brand strategy and build effective communication — fill out the form below so our experts can reach out to you.