Dyax Gains a Foundation for Multichannel Customer Engagement in the Cloud

The Customer

Dyax Corporation’s mission is to discover, develop, and commercialize innovative biopharmaceuticals for unmet medical needs, with an emphasis on inflammatory indications. The Massachusetts- based biopharmaceutical company utilizes its proprietary drug discovery technology, phage display, to identify antibody, small protein, and peptide compounds for clinical development. Dyax also leverages this technology broadly with over 70 licenses and collaborations for therapeutic discovery, as well as in noncore areas such as affinity separations, diagnostic imaging, and research reagents. Across all areas, Dyax’s work is driven by one unifying factor: the needs of patients.

The Challenge

Dyax needed to ramp up its multichannel capabilities to scale with its rapid growth but struggled to accurately identify and engage key customer segments across channels. Maintaining an up-todate view of rapidly changing healthcare professional (HCP) and healthcare organization (HCO) information was a major challenge, and keeping up with the constant changes in the medical community had fallen to the sales force.

All of the company’s field representatives were updating HCP data directly in the company’s CRM system. This decentralized data management resulted in duplicate accounts, outdated information, and reps spending their time sorting out inconsistencies prior to meeting with HCPs. Dyax had 2,000 duplicate or incomplete HCO records representing more than 15% of targeted accounts, several hundred duplicate HCP records, thousands of missing phone numbers and addresses, and few unique identifiers like NPI numbers. “Many of the records lacked basic the information needed to make the profiles useful,” says Andrew Sheely, director of IT. “We needed to get better control of our data.”

The company wanted an innovative way to get accurate customer data quickly, without the cost and complexity of traditional master data management (MDM) tools. For Dyax, the answer was in the cloud.

The Implementation

In order to make users more productive, Dyax knew it needed a way to centralize data management and continuously provide the up-to-date information reps require at their fingertips. To create the master data foundation necessary for multichannel customer engagement, Dyax selected Veeva Network. Part of Veeva Commercial Cloud, Network is a cloud-based customer master solution offering a global customer master application, HCP and HCO reference data, and stewardship services.

“Having the highest quality customer data available at all times is critical to running our business,” says Sheely. “With Network, it was easy to get the best HCP and HCO data for our therapeutic areas, kept up-to-date by Veeva data stewards. We were able to improve the quality of data and speed of updates without increasing our support staff.”

Concurrently with the Network implementation, the company capitalized on the interoperability of Veeva’s Commercial Cloud, enabling multichannel customer engagement with Veeva CRM Approved Email. Fueled with compliant content through Veeva Vault PromoMats for promotional content management, Approved Email allows Dyax’s reps to engage HCPs via email. All interactions across channels are tracked in Veeva CRM, giving Dyax deep insight into customer behavior and preferences. Within a few months, Dyax implemented both Network and Approved Email, immediately transforming its commercial operations.

The Results

Today, Dyax is identifying the right HCPs; delivering personalized, compliant content; and improving customer interactions with Veeva Commercial Cloud. Veeva Network’s true master data management capabilities were key to this new commercial model – freeing the company from the burden and cost of bringing together disparate data sources and systems. Dyax gained instant access to over 14,000 HCP/HCO records, 57,000 street addresses, and 6,000 email addresses in Network that it previously didn’t have. In just a few months, each rep had submitted an average of 65 data change requests through Network, resulting in 385 updated accounts, 364 new accounts, and 509 new or updated addresses.

All incomplete or duplicate records within Dyax’s database have been eliminated, enabling the company to leverage full customer profiles including specialties, primary parent, degrees, and other identifiers such as NPI number and state license information, required for compliant reporting and better outreach. Now, rather than wasting time manually researching HCP profiles, field representatives are reducing call prep time and improving customer engagement with more current data. In fact, just minutes into a training session, the head of Dyax’s medical science liaison (MSL) team decided to find a physician he had worked with in Minnesota. He thought the physician had moved practices, and a quick search within Network revealed a new primary address in Texas in a matter of seconds.

Because Veeva Network Customer Master is easily accessible in the cloud through Veeva CRM, reps across the country can submit updates to their Network Provider Data directly from the field. Upon verification by Veeva data stewards, these updates are added to the master repository, creating a “network effect” that helps to further augment the data. “We get the right answer delivered right in our CRM system, where our reps need it,” added Sheely.

Seamless interoperability of Veeva Commercial Cloud solutions means Veeva CRM Approved Email is fed by physician email addresses from Veeva Network, and all customer data is available directly in Veeva CRM. Reps can always execute on the latest HCP and HCO information with relevant digital outreach. Within two months of using Veeva CRM Approved Email, Dyax saw open rates of over 35% – a figure that has grown to 40% and is as high as 46% for certain email templates. The content management capabilities of Veeva Commercial Cloud ensure only the latest messages and materials are accessed through Approved Email. Dyax reps now have the ability to engage hard-to-reach customers or extend faceto- face interactions. And with visibility into email open and click rates, Dyax has greater insight into content effectiveness and can fine-tune messaging and content as needed.