How Medical Affairs Can Drive a Successful Medical Device Product Launch: Launch Team Alignment & Call Center Support

A rapidly changing medical device marketplace coupled with an intensely regulated promotional environment have pushed the Medical Affairs function beyond its traditional support role into a more prominent launch role that extends from the pre-launch phases to well beyond market entry.

As Medical Affairs gears up to fulfill its many launch responsibilities, it needs to focus on achieving strong alignment and collaboration between the various internal stakeholder functions.

Best Practices, LLC undertook this benchmarking research to provide Medical Affairs executives with insights into how launch team alignment, cross-functional collaborations, and call centers can provide high-value support for the launch of device products. This study also identifies the top pitfalls and lessons learned while launching new medical device products.

This study will help executives identify and implement more effective practices, pinpoint organizational gaps, and inform strategic planning for new medical device product launch.

KEY TOPICS

• Approaches to achieving strong alignment and collaboration between internal stakeholder functions
• Effective medical call center models and tools
• Pitfalls and lessons learned from other medical device launches

• What types of approaches work well for achieving strong alignment and collaboration between the various internal stakeholder functions supporting a medical device product launch?
• How frequently does your launch committee typically hold full cross-functional meetings leading up to product launch?
• Which functions sit on your new medical device product launch committee?
• Besides your full formal Launch Committee, what other smaller cross-functional teams does your Medical Affairs group meet regularly with to support launch?
• How is your call center system structured to effectively triage and resolve both safety and product complaints relative to medical devices?
• How effective are each of the listed innovative tools or systems in enabling your call center to either automate or streamline communications?

• Medical Information and Call Center Support:
  • Device companies use different call center structures to support varying operational and geographic scopes: Global groups favor (60% of them) separate med/commercial call centers, while U.S.-focused groups favor (60% again) a single call center structure.

Best Practices, LLC engaged 32 Medical Affairs leaders from 25 leading medical device companies in this research through a benchmarking survey. Five Medical Affairs executives were engaged in deep-dive interviews to capture additional insights.

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.