Streamlining KOL Identification for Optimized Engagement and Congress Preparation

Medical affairs evolution: from support to strategic partner

Historically, medical affairs teams were seen as reactive or support partners. Today, medical professionals act as proactive strategists, contributing to decisions in real-time and ensuring clinical considerations help shape the business strategy. The head of medical affairs at this global medtech shared three key strategies they use to solidify a strategic approach:

1. Continuous engagement: Strategic planning is not an annual event, but a routine. For example, the head of medical affairs for the Americas meets weekly with the commercial general manager and leaders of 19 other functions. This allows the team to remain agile and responsive to market shifts and opportunities, plus ensures that other functions are always aware of medical affairs’ role and contributions.
2. Understanding business goals: Medical affairs needs to understand specific business goals, such as gaining market share or deepening relationships within existing accounts. This clarity enables the medical team to tailor their activities and communication to help meet those goals.
3. Compliance and separation: Despite working within a commercial organization, medical affairs maintains a non-commercial, non-promotional function. Compliance separation is critical, as significant financial penalties are associated with corporate integrity agreements (CIAs) when either medical affairs acts commercially or commercial teams act scientifically.

“We are a strategic partner. We fuel objectives, and in many cases, we guide them. Why? It’s about patient care, and understanding where the business is going. Who understands that better than the field medical team with their finger on the pulse of exactly that.” – Associate medical director, Top 10 Medtech

Demonstrating value through measurable goals

Medical affairs, as a non-revenue-producing function, must find ways to measure, convey, and articulate the value of their work. KOL (key opinion leader) engagement, scientific communication, and therapeutic area expertise as core competencies contribute directly to their value proposition. While closing the loop on the downstream impact of medical affairs activities remains a challenge, a combination of quantitative and qualitative measures provides a solid foundation.

• Quantitative: Tracking the number of KOL interactions, new KOLs engaged, and the cadence and frequency of meetings.
• Qualitative: Measuring KOL contributions to focus groups, advisory boards, investigator-sponsored trials (ISTs), and research partnerships, following the citation of that research.

Digital transformation and KOL management

To help meet business goals, drive better engagement and ultimately better patient outcomes,, this medtech implemented Veeva Link Key People to streamline KOL identification, engagement planning, and congress preparation. What used to take hours of manual research on KOLs has been reduced to seconds, allowing field medical teams to focus on execution and improve their productivity and effectiveness.

“We use Link Key People on an everyday basis, to help make our life easier, less arduous, and to be more effective and productive so that we can have boots on the ground and have better engagements and communication with our KOLs.” – Associate medical director, Top 10 Medtech

Field medical teams at this medtech now spend less time on administrative tasks and more time engaging with healthcare professionals. To track progress and value of Veeva Link Key People, the company conducted a survey of their Americas-based MSLs which showed:

• 87% Saved time researching KOLs
• 47% Save more than 30 minutes per KOL search
• 87% See improvements in congress preparation efficiency

The associate medical director shared that she had a goal of her field medical team spending at least 80% of their time externally focused, rather than doing data entry or administrative work; which they have achieved with Link Key People. These efficiencies translate into better engagements, more actionable insights, and ultimately, improved patient outcomes.

“The question is, can you live without Veeva Link Key People? About 80% of our field medical team said no. So if that doesn’t best illustrate how we’re increasing our productivity, I don’t know what statistic would.” – Associate medical director, Top 10 Medtech

An efficient, outcomes-driven future

Seeing the benefits of Veeva Link Key People, the medtech continues to invest in digital transformation with plans to implement a CRM that integrates with their existing systems. Their goal is to further automate workflows, deliver real-time insights, and strengthen collaboration with key stakeholders.

By taking this efficiency based approach, they’re empowering their field teams and reinforcing the strategic value of medical affairs as a core component of achieving broader business objectives and showing impact across the product lifecycle.

To learn more about KOL management and deep insights, what AVITA Medical has to say or read more about Veeva Link Key People .