Sizing up med ed

pharmafile | January 19, 2004 | Feature | |   

The use of medical education in the pharmaceutical industry has never been greater. Starting from the early stages of clinical trials for a new product, external consultants and agencies are used by pharmaceutical companies to plan and support the launch and marketing of the product. Medical education companies have flourished in recent years and are finding themselves involved in more and more activities of increasing complexity.

Recently, in an effort to define medical education activities accurately, companies have preferred to be called medical communications specialists. Cathy Gibson, managing director of 4d communications explains: "The term medical education implies a narrow specific educational activity directed at doctors alone. What we do is much broader and sometimes less visible, from helping with strategic planning, to communications directed towards patients, branding activities and key message planning. Medical communications companies are involved in a wide range of communications and education activities for a variety of audiences.

Trends in medical communications

Ms Gibson says there are two big trends sweeping through the industry. "We are increasingly asked to get involved earlier in product development involvement from phase II. Also, our role is becoming more strategic and in depth because of our early involvement. We really understand the market and what stage the product is at in the product lifecycle."

Matt Rowley, managing director of Medicus and Discovery agrees: "What we do should really be called 'market-shaping', because we work in the therapeutic area and product environment before launch as much as we work with the product itself."

So what are med ed agencies doing right? What value are they bringing to product marketing? Well, one of the most valuable assets is experience. "Experienced agency people have handled multiple product launches and marketing strategies throughout their careers and have learned ideas and approaches that can be applied across different therapy areas. They can often advise product groups on what, in their experience, is the most effective use of their marketing spend," says Ms Gibson.

One of the great aspects of medical education agencies is that consultants come from a wide variety of backgrounds and bring with them different perspectives and skills. They come from pharmaceutical companies, medical or scientific research, other types of agencies such as PR or advertising or they might have a background in sales or even training.

Mr Rowley highlights a different advantage: "We did some market research with our clients, which found they felt medical education agencies really deliver valuable programmes – practical, useful and usually measurable. Unlike PR or advertising you can touch and feel our programmes, our clients get something they can put their hands on."

Although medical education agencies can add a lot of value, there are also some cautions to consider when choosing which one to work with. One question to ask yourself is do you trust your agency to give you the best advice? Ms Gibson explains: "Some agencies can be focused around specific tactics such as advisory boards or publications plans. These agencies sell what they make or do rather than what is most appropriate to that product at that time." A way around this is to ask the agency if they could suggest more than one way to tackle a particular message or issue and if they have direct experience in the tactic they are recommending as well.

Overlapping skills in your partner agencies

The next question is about other external marketing services providers – is there a problem of overlap between the different companies that you use? Where there is overlap between activities should product managers use one agency with an integrated campaign or will product groups shy away from the lack of perspective and variety of experience?

"There is a massive overlap between PR and medical communications particularly in areas such as KOL and key meetings work," says Mr Rowley. "Writing aimed at those in primary care or for patients can also overlap, but at the more scientific, specialist level this is less of a problem. Integration would be an advantage, although agencies are not organised for integration, they work in silos. But it would be a complex management, and I don think product managers want a one-size fits-all agency, they want specialised people. The best way perhaps is to have two different agencies, but make sure they can work together. Have someone at the top who is incentivised to have the two agencies work together."

He also advocates closer working relationships between medical education and advertising: "We have found that we have a role to play with the advertising strategy; we have shown that we work with the advertising strategy and pull those messages through into everything we do. You can see the sigh of relief from the product management team that the medical education agency they've chosen isn't trying to reinvent the strategy."

Ms Gibson agrees: "It's been happening for a long time. Our communications plans provide a platform for PR activities – there is a synergy between the two. Communication between all agencies working on an account pays dividends, rather than fighting for turf."

Anna Korving, joint managing director of the newly-launched Resolute agrees to an extent: "The world of healthcare communications is changing rapidly, as the wall between medical education and public relations is being breached by an increasing number of clients who recognise that, although there are many agencies which can deliver common tactics, such as opinion leader management, symposia, meetings and publications, what really distinguishes agencies from each other is their philosophical approach to the issues that the client is facing. From our perspective, being able to create and deliver really cohesive, co-ordinated communications programmes which integrate both PR and medical education techniques is what appeals to clients."

Resolute grew strongly in 2003, largely thanks to clients who had invited them to work on one area and then appointed them onto another product because of results achieved.

Ms Korving attributes their growth to their small agency status: "We believe that clients are turning away from bigger agencies and are looking at organisations which give them better value for money, greater creativity and real access to senior people on a daily basis."

Whilst the size of an agency, or the number of geographical bases it has, is often considered fundamental in PR, it seems to be much less important in medical education.

Mr Rowley says: "The US and the UK are absolutely chalk and cheese. US programmes are many times the size of ours. They spend millions of dollars and have thousands of people at meetings a year. I think US agencies aren't interested, as the size of our business is a barrier for US agencies, as we look small.

Going large or keeping it small

Also, unlike PR, medical education agencies don have many pan-European hub and spoke programmes, because the countries that would need to be involved are all too different. Programmes are either sent to countries for localisation and roll-out or they are rolled out to specialists at a pan-European level at major meetings.

The lack of global knowledge is also a stumbling block for US agencies hoping to operate globally. Indeed, US agencies often cite FDA rulings when describing what marketers can and can say about a product.

Ms Gibson explains: "The US treat the EU as one big country which clearly it isn't. Although there is increasing convergence, some products still have different licences in different countries. Also, the audiences are often very different. For example, in the UK, medical education agencies know that nurses are extremely important in some therapy areas and the role of the GP varies across European countries."

Unsurprisingly Ms Korving is a fan of smaller agencies: "Working with a smaller agency gives the client much greater access to senior, experienced personnel on a day-to-day basis and for a sustained period of time." She says because employees tend to stay longer with smaller agencies and are moved around less from project to project, there is more continuity in account handlers so they get to know your product and opinion leaders in greater depth, allowing them to deliver better results on an ongoing basis.

Another advantage of smaller agencies, she points out, is their ability to cherry pick specialist supplier organisations to give greater value for money than may be possible when projects are entirely managed in-house.

"This helps to drive creativity when thinking of design and branding, as another example, because we can work with a range of suppliers to ensure that designs are fresh, where the risk in a larger organisation is that perhaps the agency 'house' style can overwhelm the creative needs of a specific project,"she says. "Some communications programmes from bigger agencies definitely conform to a 'house' style which can restrict innovation and sometimes read as though it's simply a matter of changing the name of the product!"

Brian Palphramand, general manager of Interface Communications, agrees that the smaller agencies often provide the best services, as well as senior level programme management. He also believes it is often better to choose more than one agency to create and implement different aspects of the overall communications plan.

"It is important to recognise what skills are on offer from the agencies at your disposal, and use them in combination for greatest effect." He says: "As long as the same key messages are threaded through the different aspects of the programme, different agencies can bring real creative benefits."

Ms Gibson relishes the industry growth and variety: "The industry is quite varied and there are so many different offerings. No one in the industry would want every agency to be the same. Without the personalities where would we find new ideas? In this business you buy into people, mainly based on their strengths but also the relationships. Most product groups choose to work with people they like; it should be fun after all, and you get more out of your agency if you enjoy working with them and they with you. You should also choose people based on their strengths -you could work with a very scientific agency or a very creative agency.

Ms Gibson comments that sometimes clients still don't always benefit from using their agency's full range of services. She suggests appreciating the extra value agencies can bring through their strategic experience: "Agencies can also get you into a therapy area faster; they bring relationships with third parties, opinion leaders and knowledge of journals, meetings and publications."

Medical communications is on the rise and the future has never seemed brighter. Spanning a vast array of activities, and increasingly seen to be able to contribute not only strategically, but also deliver tactically, medical education has really come in to its own. Size breeds variety as well though, and make sure you know the strengths and weaknesses of the products, people and services you are buying. Product groups and agencies are working more closely and both are benefiting. Moving ahead it seems the next nut to crack is having true integration between advertising, PR and medical education.