Engaging Patients across Medical Affairs Activities and Functions

Industries Profiled:
Pharmaceutical; Biotech; Biopharmaceutical; Medical Device; Manufacturing; Consumer Products; Diagnostic; Health Care; Service; Consulting; Communications; Clinical Research; Laboratories


Companies Profiled:
AbbVie; Adaptimmune; Alexion Pharmaceuticals; ASC Therapeutics; Astellas; Baxter International; Bayer; bioMerieux; Boehringer Ingelheim; Boston Scientific; Chiesi; Daiichi Sankyo; Eisai; EVERSANA; Kyowa Kirin; MEDiSTRAVA; Merck; Merck Sharp & Dohme; NexGen Healthcare; Sanofi; Servier; Supernus; Takeda Pharmaceuticals; Teleflex; The Medicine Group; United Therapeutics

Study Snapshot

Best Practices, LLC engaged 27 Medical leaders from 26 pharma and biotech companies in this research through a benchmarking survey. Deep-dive interviews were conducted with selected study participants to provide further insights. Data in this report are segmented by respondents’ description of their medical team’s effectiveness with patient engagement – highly effective vs. less effective.

Key topics covered in this report include:

• Medical Affairs and Patient Engagement - An Overview
• Representing the Patient Voice
• Strategies for Early-Stage and Late-Stage Patient Support
• Medical Affairs’ Roles and Responsibilities in Patient Engagement
• Medical Affairs Internal and External Collaboration for Patient Engagement
• Lessons Learned and Pitfalls

• Patient Engagement: While medical groups are active at patient engagement across product phases, groups identified as effective at engaging patients are more active during clinical trials (67% vs. 47%).

• Collecting Patient Voice: Outcomes data and partnering with treatment teams are considered effective by Medical Affairs groups for collecting patient voice during the early launch phases.

• Maturity curve: Evolution of patient engagement in Medical Affairs
• Narrative on what makes medical team’s patient engagement efforts effective
• Narrative on how pharma advocacy groups represent the voice of the patient
• Narrative on how Medical Affairs can improve the effectiveness of a patient engagement program
• Product phases at which Medical Affairs groups are active in patient engagement

• Placing patient priorities in the center of medical activities
• Effectiveness of Medical Affairs groups at representing patient voice
• Narrative on what medical needs to do to make patient role effective
• Highly effective tools and strategies used by Medical Affairs groups to collect patient voice during the pre-launch and launch phase
• Narrative on how structure of patient advocacy group can affect its effectiveness
• Effective tools and strategies used by Medical Affairs organizations to collect insights regarding the voice of the patients during the pre-launch phase
• Effective tools and strategies used by Medical Affairs organizations to collect insights regarding the voice of the patients during the early launch phase
• Effective tools and strategies used by Medical Affairs organizations to collect insights regarding the voice of the patients during the pre-launch and launch phase - Medical groups highly effective at representing patient voice vs. Medical groups less effective at representing patient voice

• Highly effective and most-used strategies for early-stage and late-stage patient support
• Effective approaches in supporting patients at the early stage of their disease
• Narrative on the best time to capture patient voice
• Effective approaches in supporting patients at the late-stage of their disease
• Narrative on Medical Affairs’ direct involvement with patient advocacy groups
• Strategies for early-stage and late-stage patient support - Medical groups highly effective at representing patient voice vs. Medical groups less effective at representing patient voice
• Narrative on working closely with patient advocacy groups
• Medical Affairs group’s working relationship with patient advocacy groups
• Medical Affairs group’s working relationship with patient advocacy groups - Medical groups highly effective at representing patient voice vs. Medical groups less effective at representing patient voice

• Narrative around SOPs defining roles and responsibilities
• Medical Affairs’ role with the different patient engagement programs
• Medical Affairs’ role with the different patient engagement programs - Medical groups highly effective at representing patient voice vs. Medical groups less effective at representing patient voice
• Most effective patient education activities led by Medical Affairs
• Medical Affairs organization’s role with different patient education activities
• Effective activities in building a successful patient education program within the Medical Affairs group
• Effective activities in building a successful patient education program within the Medical Affairs group - Medical groups highly effective at representing patient voice vs. Medical groups less effective at representing patient voice
• Most effective patient advocacy activities led by Medical Affairs
• Medical Affairs organization’s role with different patient advocacy activities
• Effective activities in building a successful patient advocacy program within the Medical Affairs group
• Narrative on aligning organizational goals with patient advocacy group goals
• Effective activities in building a successful patient advocacy program within the Medical Affairs group - Medical groups highly effective at representing patient voice vs. Medical groups less effective at representing patient voice
• Most effective patient medication adherence activities led by Medical Affairs
• Medical Affairs organization’s role with different patient medication adherence activities
• Effective activities in building a successful patient medication adherence program within the Medical Affairs group
• Most effective patient health outcomes activities led by Medical Affairs
• Narrative around collaboration between medical group and patient health outcomes programs
• Medical Affairs organization’s role with different patient health outcomes activities
• Effective activities in building a successful patient health outcomes program within the Medical Affairs group
• Narrative around ways to better communicate with patients
• Effective activities in building a successful patient health outcomes program within the Medical Affairs group - Medical groups highly effective at representing patient voice vs. Medical groups less effective at representing patient voice

• Effectiveness of collaboration between Medical Affairs and internal groups on different patient engagement tasks
• Effectiveness of collaboration between Medical Affairs and internal groups on different patient engagement tasks - Medical groups highly effective at representing patient voice vs. Medical groups less effective at representing patient voice
• Narrative on representing the patient voice across activities
• Effectiveness of collaboration between Medical Affairs and external partners on different patient engagement activities
• Effectiveness of collaboration between Medical Affairs and external partners on different patient engagement activities - Medical groups highly effective at representing patient voice vs. Medical groups less effective at representing patient voice
• Involvement level of each of the Medical Affairs sub-functions in patient engagement activities
• Involvement level of each of the Medical Affairs sub-functions in patient engagement activities - Medical groups highly effective at representing patient voice vs. Medical groups less effective at representing patient voice
• Key internal and external collaborators for Medical Affairs groups on different patient engagement activities
• Frequency of Medical Affairs’ collaboration with internal groups on patient engagement activities
• Frequency of Medical Affairs’ collaboration with external groups on patient engagement activities
• Frequency of Medical Affairs’ collaboration with internal groups on patient engagement activities – Highly effective groups vs. less effective groups
• Frequency of Medical Affairs’ collaboration with external groups on patient engagement activities – Highly effective groups vs. less effective groups
• Critical lessons learned about representing the patient voice through the Medical Affairs organization
• Critical pitfalls or stumbling blocks encountered in capturing and representing the patient voice in Medical Affairs

• Geographic span of participating Medical Affairs group involved in patient engagement activities
• Therapeutic areas represented in this research
• Product phases in which benchmark Medical Affairs organizations have experience with performing patient engagement