Best Practices for Developing Medical Affairs Professionals: Training Oversight and Curriculum

STUDY OVERVIEW

As the importance of the Medical Affairs function continues to grow, top biopharma companies have developed high-impact training and development programs to help Medical Affairs professionals succeed in their critical, multifaceted roles.

Best Practices, LLC undertook this benchmarking research to examine best-in-class practices that leading biopharma organizations have implemented to create effective training oversight and curriculums.

This study will help companies maximize the benefits of their training and development programs, producing Medical Affairs staff capable of strong strategic thinking, critical communication with internal and external stakeholders, effective thought leader management, and high-impact field interactions.

Training and development leaders in medical affairs can use this study to compare their programs with those at best-in-class companies.

This study includes three data segments: Total Benchmark Class, 57; More Mature Segment, 29; and Less Mature Segment, 28

KEY TOPICS

• Study Overview
• Key Findings
• Training Oversight & Approvals
• Training Curriculum

I. Training Oversight & Approvals

• Staffing of Medical Affairs training and development function
• Responsibility area for Medical Affairs training
• Role of different groups in managing Medical Affairs training and development programs
• Involvement of groups in the approval of Medical Affairs training programs
• Primary responsibility for the approval of Medical Affairs training

• Importance of training Medical Affairs professionals on each of the listed competency areas
• Medical Affairs training competency vs performance vs duration
• Success rate of participating organizations in using each of the listed sources to design an effective Medical Affairs training curriculum
• Level of collaboration of the Medical Affairs training group with each of the internal stakeholder groups for designing the training program
• Level of collaboration of the Medical Affairs training group with each of the external stakeholder groups for designing the training program

• Support Full-time Trainers by Using Ad-hoc or Part-time trainers: While nearly all companies use part-time trainers, mature companies equally rely on both part-time and full-time trainers. Dedicated and experienced staff helps organizations achieve overall training goals in a timely manner and allows for the expansion of topic areas giving trainees a deeper understanding of the industry.
• Move towards decentralization of training responsibility: Allocating training responsibility at global level provides control and standardization. As the training function matures, country and regional leadership can be tasked to customize content, with global oversight authority. At more than a third of companies training responsibility is held at country level while at 26% it is shared by country, regional and global level.

Best Practices, LLC  engaged 57 Medical Affairs and training leaders at 42 companies. These leaders are involved with Medical Affairs training at their organizations. In-depth interviews were conducted with 5 participants to highlight often-used training practices.

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


Companies Profiled:
Adamas Pharmaceuticals; Alcon Laboratories; Alkem; Arena Pharmaceuticals; Astellas; AstraZeneca; AveXis; Bayer; Biogen; Dendreon Pharmaceuticals LLC; Eisai; EMD Serono; Endo Pharmaceuticals; Ferring Pharmaceuticals; Fidia; Gedeon Richter ; Genentech; Heron Therapeutics; Indegene; Ipsen; IQVIA; Karyopharm Therapeutics; Mallinckrodt; MEDiSTRAVA; Merck; NexGen Healthcare Communications; Novartis; Novo Nordisk; Pfizer; PTC Therapeutics; Inc.; Sanofi; Retrophin; Rhythm Pharmaceuticals; Sanofi Genzyme; Sunovion; Terumo Corporation; Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd; TG Therapeutics; UCB Pharma; United Therapeutics; Versant

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