Speed, Scale, and Connectivity: Teva’s New Standard for Medical Information

Teva Pharmaceuticals’ legacy of innovation spans over 120 years. The company’s mission to deliver quality medicine is rooted in the belief that “When it comes to health and the people we serve, good is not enough for us” — a standard that recently shaped its approach to transforming medical information.

Few functions are as interconnected as medical information. Every system decision carries weight upstream and downstream. Deciding to change isn’t easy and never happens on a whim. It requires careful consideration, coordination, and commitment to a long-term vision. Teva realized the status quo wasn’t enough and keeping things as-is meant falling behind.

Aligning technology with long-term vision

Seven years ago, Teva invested in a global medical information system to unify siloed operations across the United States, Europe, and International Markets countries. At the time, it was a milestone. But quickly, persistent technology issues and limitations began to hold the organization back. Challenges with customer service, a lack of connection with critical systems, and Teva’s long-term strategic path to implement and connect data and processes cross functionally signaled a need for change. “There’s no compromise when it comes to compliance. We needed a better platform and a partner who could deliver on Teva’s long-term goals and objectives,” says Susan Larijani, senior director of medical information at Teva.

The organization launched an RFP process guided by its long-term IT roadmap. The evaluation criteria prioritized scalability, seamless connectivity, and automation to strengthen data integrity across platforms.

Teva’s decision to select Veeva MedInquiry as its global medical information system was a collaborative one. Global IT and Medical Affairs participated in the RFP process, with input from a cross-functional global medical team and select commercial partners. Global IT made the final decision in partnership with the SVP and Head of Global Medical Affairs, Todd Fox. Ultimately, MedInquiry offered the best fit for both business and technical requirements.

“Our transition to Veeva MedInquiry reflects a broader commitment as a critical interface with the global healthcare ecosystem in advancing how we deliver Medical Information — ensuring our teams are equipped to meet rising expectations across global markets.” – Todd Fox, SVP, head of global medical affairs, Teva

Executing a global go-live across 5,000+ products

In 2024, Teva simultaneously onboarded all regions to MedInquiry, completing global implementation in just nine months. The rollout marked Veeva’s fastest for a large biopharma and set a new standard for execution at scale.

Key project highlights include:

• Global go-live across 56 countries, with full onboarding across three major regions.
• Veeva Connections to CRM (for U.S. Field Medical and Sales), Safety, PromoMats, and MedComms, and plans for connecting Quality and CRM for Europe and International Markets in the future.
• Connection to PromoMats, specifically the Global Medical Review (GMR) Vault, assured that only the most current, up-to-date medical response documents could be accessed and used in responding to unsolicited requests.
• Customizations were designed to support not only efficiencies in processing MIRs, AEs and PQCs but also Teva’s essential business requirements and scalability for future needs.
• Full representation from all regions, ensuring local needs were discussed, prioritized, and implemented through a majority-vote system.

Implementing large-scale, global projects can be complex. Teva knew from the outset that unifying a comprehensive, global product list would be one of its biggest hurdles. “We expected this challenge since we manage an extensive list of globally marketed products,” says Larijani. “Take amoxicillin for instance: you could have amoxicillin suspension, amoxicillin for injection, amoxicillin capsules, amoxicillin tablets. We had to import all of these products in the database,” she explains.

To address this challenge, Veeva customized a solution for Teva by extending the “Product” field with the addition of a “Product Details” field. “It was great working with the Veeva team. They went back to the drawing board and delivered a solution,” says Larijani. “We then worked internally to import our 5000 plus product details into MedInquiry to ensure access by all countries and consistency in how products are entered in the system. It’s working really well for us.”

Realizing quick wins through connection

With MedInquiry live, the benefits of a fully connected ecosystem became clear almost immediately. Seamless integration with other Veeva solutions enabled new levels of automation, visibility, and responsiveness. Two in particular, according to Larijani, have delivered significant impact.

Automating adverse event triage and reconciliation

The Medical-Safety Connection has eliminated the need for manual adverse event (AE) triage and weekly reconciliation between medical information and pharmacovigilance. Automated data transfer through field-to-field mapping has significantly reduced duplicate data entry for pharmacovigilance teams, improving efficiency across both functions. To date, over 9,000 adverse events have been transferred and reconciled, eliminating hundreds of hours of manual human effort.

Improving field coordination and response time

For Larijani and her colleagues, one of the most impactful changes has been the connection between MedInquiry and CRM. Previously, MIRs from field teams wouldn’t arrive until the next day. To date, almost 700 MIRs have been transferred in near real time to MedInquiry and the majority of these MIRs can be fulfilled within the same day. They also appear on the CRM timeline to help the field have more informed interactions.

Teva’s increase in responsiveness isn’t just operational — it’s impactful. “At the end of the day, it’s the patient who benefits,” says Larijani. “If a doctor is deciding whether to use a Teva medicine, and we can promptly address their question, providing them with accurate and complete clinical information faster, that patient may receive treatment sooner. It’s a win-win.”

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