The Modern Field Medical Team: Benchmarking Hybrid vs. Traditional MSL Roles, Salary, Retention, Access and Engagement Levels

Industries Profiled:
Pharmaceutical; Medical Device; Manufacturing; Biotech; Consumer Products; Diagnostic; Biopharmaceutical; Health Care


Companies Profiled:
Agios; Alexion Pharmaceuticals; Astellas; AstraZeneca; Baxter Healthcare; Bayer; Biogen; Bluebird Bio; Chiesi; Clovis Oncology; CSL Limited; Dompé; Eisai; Fidia Pharma USA Inc.; Fresenius Kabi; Galapagos; GE Healthcare; Horizon Therapeutics; Ipsen; Kyowa Kirin; MacroGenics; Merck; Merus; Novartis; Orchard Therapeutics; Sage Therapeutics; Servier; Supernus; Takeda Pharmaceuticals; Vertex Pharmaceuticals

Study Snapshot

Best Practices, LLC engaged 38 Field Medical and other Medical Affairs leaders from 30 biopharma organizations in this research through a benchmark survey. Deep-dive interviews were also conducted with field medical leaders at 12 organizations to capture additional insights.

Key topics covered in this report include:

• Staffing Levels: Traditional MSLs vs. Hybrid MSLs
• Drivers of Field Team Evolution
• Medical vs. Commercial Field Resourcing
• Effective Recruitment: Factors and Tactics
• MSL Training Areas
• MSL Salary Levels and Trends
• Effective Perks and Retention Strategies
• Field Challenges
• KOL Access - Post Pandemic
• Customer Engagement Preference
• Proactive Outreach
• F2F Meetings: Value and Ideal Mix

• Field-based vs. Hybrid MSLs: Roughly 65% of organizations make use of traditional “field-based” MSLs, while 45% use “hybrid” MSLs – but few organizations use both types in a strategically complementary manner. Since most larger manufacturers use hybrid MSLs, the vast majority of MSLs in the field today qualify as such.

• Proactive outreach and product-specific discussion: On average, hybrid MSLs initiate 48% of KOL interactions, proactively discussing products in 53% of these interactions. This equates to a baseline “Proactive Product” outreach index of 25% of all interactions, or 4.6 F2F and 2.4 virtual Proactive Product engagements per MSL per month.

• Project background
• Key study definitions
• Benchmark study partners
• Key takeaways
• Executive field performance dashboard
• Full data summary
• Field-based vs. hybrid MSLs
• F2F vs. virtual interactions
• Effective recruitment and retention principles

• Prevalence of MSL types across the industry – Field-based MSLs vs. Hybrid MSLs vs. Virtual MSLs
• Case study: Large US pharma organization pilot
• Average staffing levels at benchmarked Field medical groups
• Assessing effectiveness of different MSL types
• Post-Pandemic drivers of field team evolution
• Anticipated MSL staffing trends
• Average staffing levels for non-MSL field roles
• Key field support roles
• Sales rep-to-MSL ratio

• Overall YoY attrition rate among MSLs
• Effective MSL recruitment factors
• Successful tactics to recruit MSLs
• MSL recruitment lessons learned
• Most valuable MSL training areas
• Average MSL salary levels
• Drivers of MSL compensation
• Anticipated MSL salary trends
• Defending increased field team investment
• Top perks for attracting and retaining MSL staff
• Effective MSL retention strategies

• Top challenges faced by field teams in seeking to effectively support external stakeholders
• Post-Pandemic KOL and HCP access
• KOL and HCP engagement preferences
• Average KOL call list size
• Total monthly F2F and virtual meetings with KOLs
• Proactive outreaches to KOLs
• MSL proactivity index
• Interview narrative around proactive outreach
• Value of F2F meetings
• Ideal mix of F2F interactions
• Interview narratives around effective KPIs used to demonstrate field impact
• Top KPIs used to measure field impact

• Therapeutic area represented by benchmark partners
• Geographical area of benchmark partners