Earlier this year, we took a quick webinar poll and found that 95% of the attendees described their insights management process in the same way – completely manual or only somewhat tech-enabled. Research from MAPS recently revealed a similar issue, with 47% of medical affairs teams reporting that insights from different sources were either not integrated or were integrated with a manual process. What’s the impact of insights, and what can you achieve with a more integrated insights management strategy?
What’s the value of the invisible college?
You’re likely well-versed in engaging key experts – whether by purchasing lists or a database or using bibliometrics to see who’s publishing on a specific topic – and you probably work hard to build and maintain productive KOL relationships. Perhaps you’ve got a list of prominent experts in your disease community or a contracted group of HCPs that you rely on to help you answer questions and shape your strategy.
But what if these KOLs could help you do more, or if HCP engagement could uncover new market opportunities?
Within3 worked with a pharmaceutical team to identify key external experts to advise on developing, marketing, and releasing a new drug. The team wanted to engage a group of gastroenterologists and had a few primary goals:
- Determine go-to-market strategy
- Determine and build out field team strategy
- Identify licensing opportunities
- Engage new experts to increase pre-launch footprint
While identifying experts in the gastroenterology disease community, something – or rather, someone – interesting came up: a respirologist and several other experts from fields outside gastroenterology. In this case, the respirologist recognized that the company’s molecule showed significant activity in treating an unrelated condition, leading to a nine-figure out-licensing opportunity.
Opportunities like this don’t arise by relying on bibliometrics or buying a database but by using technology to look at the invisible college – groups of HCPs who aren’t affiliated with any single company or institution – and understanding who are the true influencers within a given disease community.
Better conversations to drive revenue
Insights come from high-quality conversations – in-depth discussions with ample opportunities for broad participation and thorough follow-up. These conversations make teams more nimble, with the ability to make more confident decisions.
We worked with a global team that expanded their use of asynchronous engagement technology to save on hard costs like travel and soft costs like time spent on internal coordination and meetings. The team saved over $3 million in hard costs and roughly $500,000 in soft costs by virtually engaging internal and external stakeholders.
But the most compelling results were in revenue lift – the impact of the business insights and associated improvements to business results from internal and external customer engagements. To estimate this result, the team tied a 1% revenue impact to brands within 12 months of launch that used online discussion sessions. Based on this approach, the revenue lift was estimated at more than $10 million.
These client successes show how pharma teams are already creating value with insights management. Want more? Learn how one team used congress social monitoring to discover four new expert voices and understand the sentiment around data releases from their own organization and a competitor.
