Benchmarking Advisory Board Management At Small Pharmaceutical & Medical Device Organizations: Structure and Operations

STUDY OVERVIEW

The pharmaceutical and medical device industries rely on advisory boards to provide non-binding but informed guidance on various marketing, clinical, payer and physician related issues that affect their operations. Organizations need to structure their use of advisory boards in a way that ensures they are utilizing the full range of advisory board types to inform their operations. Companies also need to make sure they are recruiting the right board members, using an appropriate meeting format and spending the right amount of time in preparation of the meetings.

Best Practices, LLC undertook this study to identify structure and operational benchmarks around the use of advisory boards in the pharma and device sectors. In particular, the study examines preferences around the types of boards, size of boards, types of format, meeting length and other structural and operational issues associated with advisory boards. Leaders who work with advisory boards can use this study to compare their company's approach with that of peer organizations.

NOTE: Segmentation analysis was key to examining trends and effective practices. This study captures insights from two segments: Total Benchmark Class and Small Companies Segment.

KEY TOPICS

• Structure of Advisory Boards
• Operations of Advisory Boards
  
  

• Types of Advisory Boards hosted by your company
• Number of participants present in Advisory Boards
• Departments responsible for conducting these types of Advisory Board meetings
• Duration of contract (in months) for the following Advisory Boards
• What were the top 3 reasons for establishing these types of Advisory Boards
• What were the typical number of Advisory Board meetings conducted annually for each type of board
• What was the preferred duration (in hours) for each type of Advisory Board
• What was the format for each type of Advisory Board that your organization conducts
• What was the average number of hours needed for preparation for each type of Advisory Board
  

• Clinical Advisory Boards’ Contract Last Longest; Payer Advisory Boards’ Contracts are Shortest Duration: Clinical advisory boards’ contracts with participants have the longest duration, averaging 11 months. Meanwhile, the length of payer advisory boards averages 7.7 months. On average, physician and marketing advisory boards’ contract duration is 9.4 and 9.9 months, respectively.  Three of the participating companies have contract lengths as low as a month.
   

This study engaged 35 executives from 29 leading life sciences companies. Segmentation analysis was key to examining trends and effective practices. Twelve participants from 12 companies comprise the Small Company Segment (revenues less than USD $1 billion).

Industries Profiled:
Health Care; Medical Device; Pharmaceutical; Biotech; Biopharmaceutical; Consumer Products; Diagnostic; Academic; Research; Consulting; Education; Science; Clinical Research; Laboratories


Companies Profiled:
Abbott Nutrition; Articulate Labs; Abbvie; Acorda Therapeutics; AstraZeneca; Avanir; Bayer Healthcare; Biogen Idec; Boehringer Ingelheim; B. Braun; Catalent Pharma Solutions; cipla; Covidien; Duke University and Health System; Haemonetics Corporation; Lupin; MD Outlook; Medicines Differentiation Analytics; Medunik Canada; Novo Nordisk; PharMedium; Poxel; Purdue Pharma; Reliance Institute of Life Sciences; Sanofi; Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd; UCB Pharma; Uroplasty; Xenoport

If you purchase Best Practice Database document(s), you will have 30 days from the date of purchase to apply some or all of the cost of the document(s) toward the cost of a Full Access Individual, Pharma, Group or University Membership. Write us at DatabaseTeam@bestpracticesllc.com or call David Guinn at 919-767-9179 if you have any questions.