Challenge

In 2021, a midsize Pharma company was planning to update its Medical Affairs structure and practices, in order to keep up (and possibly get ahead of) the changes, accelerated by the pandemic, in customer needs and medical affairs priorities, strategies, activities and methods. The goal of the project was to inform these plans with an understanding of which changes were gaining acceptance in the pier pharma group and why, and to assess how the trajectory of change was likely to evolve.

Solution

The initial stage of the project involved extensive secondary research, including a rapid review of over 70 articles, webinars and blogs from reputable sources published in the prior 12 months on the ongoing transformation of medical affairs. The findings were synthesized and reviewed with the client, to gauge their interest in individual directions.  Selected areas were then validated through structured interviews with a dozen experienced Medical Affairs decision-makers from pier Pharma companies.  The resulting set of recommendations focused on specific aspects of individualized customer engagement, digitalization of activities, evolution of structure and competencies and compliance considerations, reflecting the learnings obtained and decision made by similar companies since before the pandemic. Access to this information allowed our client to jump-start their own transformation.