Americas MSL Excellence: Optimizing alignment and assessment for field medical operations in the Americas

STUDY OVERVIEW

The regulatory and cultural dynamics of countries in the Americas shape how pharmaceutical companies utilize their MSLs in thought leader interactions in those countries. Likewise, regional differences should affect how companies structure and align their MSL teams as well as assess MSL productivity.

Best Practices, LLC conducted this Americas-focused study to help pharmaceutical leaders understand how peer pharma companies structure and align their MSL teams in the Americas, which include Brazil, Mexico and Canada. There is no U.S. data in this study. The research also provides reliable region and country-level field medical metrics on MSL productivity, efficiency, KOL and key account targeting, interaction frequency, communication and tools, skills and background.

Critical MSL alignment and assessment questions addressed in this study include:

• Organizational structure
• Field team alignment
• Field team productivity and efficiency
  
  KEY TOPICS
  
• Executive Summary
• Aligning MSLs: Structure, reporting and organizational support
• Assessing MSLs: Capacity, KOL targeting and engagement
  

• MSL structure – All regions and Americas countries
• Reporting relationship between the MSLs in each country and global Medical Affairs organization – All regions, Americas countries
• Interview narratives around country-aligned (local and global) reporting structure and model
• MSL direct reporting outside of global Medical Affairs – All regions and Americas countries
• Average MSL time spent per week on each of the listed activity areas
• Number of thought leaders supported per MSL – All regions and Americas countries
• Thought leader tier breakdown for a typical MSL in the Americas
• Approximate number of HCPs (i.e., not on thought leader target list) engaged by each MSL in the past 12 months
• Total large key accounts (hospitals, care networks or academic institutions) served by each MSL in the Americas and their countries
• Average time spent by MSLs in each face-to-face thought leader interactions (in minutes) – All regions
• Average frequency of MSL interactions with each kind of thought leader in the Americas and their countries
• Percentage of proactive vs. reactive MSL interactions – All regions and Americas countries
• Frequency of proactive MSL interaction types – All regions
• Effectiveness of communication channels in Europe for MSL interactions with thought leaders
• MSL professional backgrounds and experience
• Actual work experience vs. effective work experience of MSLs for engaging thought leaders in high quality scientific discussions and building long-term relationships
• Average years of MSL experience in each region
  

• Structure & alignment: Though mainly belonging to the Medical organization, LATAM MSLs rarely report directly to the Global MA group, reporting almost instead to the country affiliate. Canada is somewhat of an exception, with 44% of companies forging a direct reporting relationship for these MSLs into Global.

Best Practices, LLC engaged 125 Global Medical Affairs and Field Medical Excellence leaders from more than 40 leading pharma and biotech companies in this research through a benchmarking survey. In-depth interviews were conducted with 8 benchmark partners to gain further insights.

Industries Profiled:
Health Care; Pharmaceutical; Diagnostic; Biotech; Manufacturing; Consumer Products; Medical Device; Chemical; Biopharmaceutical; Clinical Research; Laboratories


Companies Profiled:
Abbott; Alexion Pharmaceuticals; Allergopharma; Amgen; AstraZeneca; Bayer; Biogen; Bioventus; Boehringer Ingelheim; Celgene; Chiesi; Clovis Oncology; Dr Reddy's Laboratories; Eisai; Galderma; GE Healthcare; Gedeon Richter ; Gilead Sciences; Grifols; Ipsen; Janssen; Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals; Kyowa Kirin; Merck Serono; Merck; Novartis; Pfizer; Rakuten Medical; Roche; Sandoz; Sanofi; Lupin; Shire; Takeda Pharmaceuticals; Sunovion; UCB Pharma; Vertex Pharmaceuticals; Vifor Pharma; ViiV Healthcare

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