In the previous article we talked about the necessary metrics for Field Medical professionals (MSLs). Now we’ll show how dedicated medical affairs analytics can be used by headquarters’ publication planners to support key objectives. 

The 4Ws of Publication Planning

To publication planners, content is king. How you choose to represent that content in order to effectively communicate the information is both a challenge and art.  Which specific meetings, which journals and when, in what format and by which KOLs are all critical decisions for publication planners.

Making the right decisions so that your data are meaningful and impactful for readers and conference attendees requires comprehensive information and analysis – “Medical Affairs Analytics.”

Let’s look first at the what, who, when and where of Medical Affairs Analytics and how these data apply to Publication Planning. Later we’ll look at specific analytic tools to help you address:

• What: Your data are the centerpiece of all scientific communications, and publication planners need to choose wisely which aspects to highlight in specific venues. For example, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics may resonate with one audience, while improvements in quality of life will be more engaging to another. A comprehensive literature survey can reveal the most-discussed drugs or molecules in any therapeutic area. Further analysis can determine which of their attributes are most relevant to particular publications. Using that information helps you build a publication plan that bridges knowledge gaps or taps into ongoing scientific conversations in a way that ensures your data is relevant in the context of current scientific conversations.

• Who: Generating your data starts with the scientists leading your research efforts and, ultimately, presenting and publishing this information as part of your plan. Surveying a decade of data can identify the most prolific authors and speakers, segment them by therapeutic area, their research with specific drug class, where they have published and assess their current and historic activity in those areas. It also identifies which academic institutions or pharmaceutical companies are publishing and presenting in your areas of interest. Consequently, with good medical affairs analytics, you can select principal investigators to conduct studies and speakers and lead authors to present data. You can even identify emerging competitors.

• When: Reviewing the communications activities in the years before and after a highly successful drug launch can help you develop a timeline of launch activities and its key elements. Analyzing competitors’ communications starting three years before a launch should reveal who those companies talked with, which scientific leaders were enlisted, who co-authored papers, where they presented and published and what they said. Such analyses are integral to publication planning and help time your communications for events (like launch activities and conferences) and ensure physicians anticipate your product.

• Where: Publishing in leading journals isn’t always ideal. Their prestige is largely irrelevant if you miss your target audience. Likewise, tracking scientific communications from a global to a granular, local level to identify thought leaders and opportunities is vital as pharmaceutical manufacturing nations become developer nations. Planning your publication schedule based upon analytics – listing key scientific endpoints and timing communication to the venues that meet your goals – helps ensure your publication plan incorporate the elements that resonate with your intended audiences.  Building an analytic-based publication plan not only supports your decisions, but helps you collaborate more effectively with other departments to ensure they have the scientific material – posters, papers, for example – to support their own outreach activities.

The Art and Science of Publication Planning

Knowing the what, who, when and where of Medical Affairs Analytics is one step in doing that. Understanding the therapeutic area, applying metrics and asking important questions during data analysis can help the publications professional maximize data potential. That’s the “science”. Applying and using your data in the best time and place and for the best audience in the right format is the “art”.

Here are some of the specific analytics tools publication professionals can use to enhance the “Science and Art” of what they do:

• Author Emphasis. This tool lets you see how frequently specific contributors publish in particular journals or speak at specific conferences. Analysis reveals not just where your scientific experts publish, but which publication advisory boards they sit on. Selecting lead investigators or authors who frequently publish in journals of interest may improve your abilities to place your information in those journals.

• Topic (or data) Emphasis.  Being able to find the right journal or conference to feature your data is an “imperative” all in itself.Knowing which are currently right and how others may have changed in their focus  is critical in insuring you reach your intended audience.. Knowing, for example, that editors are becoming interested in the pharmacoeconomics of drugs as well as Phase III results, can help you ensure those points are covered in your scientific data. Examining a decade of these trends helps you develop a more current and strategic publication plan.

• Share of Scientific Voice by Scientific Expert. The selection of investigators, who, ultimately become your authors is critical to the success of your publication objectives. Correlating communications about particular compounds to particular investigators shows you what they’re talking about. Understanding these links gives you insights into their interests and networks and, importantly, their relationships with institutions and other pharmaceutical companies. That, in turn, helps you decide which investigators are best-suited to your efforts or whether you should search for other investigators.

• Benchmark Analysis. Uncovering a comprehensive timeline from a successful product launch in a therapeutic area in which you are working can be extremely insightful. Seeing where the data foci were, and may be going, can help determine how you should position your work and even uncover helpful gaps for you to focus on. For example, if you are preparing to launch a drug for multiple sclerosis (MS), based on your product’s data and attributes, you may want to analyze the launch of the market leader in this category , by looking into which meetings they presented at, which journals they published in and what data they focused on. Having such an objective “blueprint” from a successful launch will add credibility to the design of your publication plan and potentially make it more successful.

Using these powerful analytics tools can help Medical Affairs publications professionals slice and dice the data any way they need, uncovering trends and forming insights quickly and easily which can help maximize data potential and communication of imperatives. Fast, easy, objective, and accurate – Medical Affairs publication planning analytics, now at your fingertips.