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Blog
Driving the Right Stakeholder Dialogue (Part 4 of 5)
How to Build Strong, Lasting Partnerships with Thought Leaders
Rebecca Galbraith, Head of Medical Communications, IQVIA
Apr 16, 2024

By engaging thought leaders across a range of clinical specialties, healthcare settings, interests, and geographies, Medical Affairs teams can tap into these leaders’ expertise and input as they craft, execute, and evolve a medical strategy. Thought leaders can help generate diverse insights into current and future clinical practice, unmet medical needs, patient needs, healthcare system nuances, and views on the profile and potential use of a product. In short, their insights can be invaluable from early clinical development through launch and beyond.

Earlier installments of this series explored innovative ways to identify thought leaders and made a case that conventional engagement planning may be obsolete. This post takes a closer look at how Medical Affairs teams can create strong, lasting, and mutually beneficial partnerships with thought leaders.

Relationship fundamentals still apply

Today, Medical Affairs teams have opportunities to conduct more comprehensive evidence planning and tap into a broader array of data sources. But even amid growing complexity and emerging innovations, relationship-building basics still apply. When working to operationalize thought leader planning, keep these tenets top of mind:

  • Shared goals. At the beginning of the journey, work to understand each thought leader’s interests and goals. Collaborate with them to reach agreement on shared objectives, and then design a plan and prioritize activities that bring value to them as individuals.
  • Transparent, trusted communication. Communicate consistently and openly with thought leaders about shared interests and objectives. Strive to build and maintain a two-way partnership by sharing information, asking for feedback, and circling back to explain how feedback was addressed.
  • High-quality scientific content and discussion. Keep sharing clinical, real-world, and scientific data to inform conversations and activities. Use these resources to guide evidence generation and dissemination initiatives, too.
  • Be respectful and intentional. Thought leaders have busy schedules and individual preferences for interaction. Work to orchestrate engagement so each thought leader has a single point of contact. Prioritizing and consolidating communications and activities is beneficial to all stakeholders. For thought leaders, this approach is a time saver; for pharma organizations, it simplifies governance.
Consider convening an expert steering group

Findings of a recent IQVIA survey affirmed that one important cohort of thought leaders — healthcare professional audiences — value practical, clinically relevant, and focused resources. What’s more, they prefer for these resources to come from independent sources or independent sources enabled through collaboration with pharmaceutical companies.

Forming an expert steering committee can be a highly effective way of building and sustaining meaningful engagement that can identify the needs of the clinical community and drive collaboration to address these through relevant, expert-led activities and resources. Whether formed at an international, national, or regional level, expert steering groups should be composed of a carefully selected group of experts. They need to represent members of the multidisciplinary team and stakeholder groups that are relevant to a particular therapy area and clinical approach.

Many thought leaders welcome the chance to join a cohesive, clearly identified group of experts in which they can collaborate with peers, form valuable networks, and explore needs and questions they encounter in their clinical and/or scientific activities. In many cases, a global committee made up of internationally recognized thought leaders can branch into national groups — each led by a member of the international cohort.

For pharma organizations, these committees provide a structured mechanism for building relationships and filling critical gaps. These committees can help in tackling unanswered questions and evidence gaps, generating data to fill those gaps, and then helping to communicate results across peer networks. Members can help in generating and executing ideas for medical education activities, in-person or virtual training, and more.

Build a strong, lasting foundation

In strong, healthy relationships, both parties feel seen, heard, understood, and supported. Medical Affairs teams’ collaborations with thought leaders are no exception. Without proper focus on long-term relationship building, Medical Affairs teams may end up approaching thought leaders in ways that are tactical at best, inconsiderate at worst. By investing in expert steering committees and other long-term relationship-building efforts, teams can spark relationships that offer value to all participants and stand the test of time.

 

In case you missed it, click here to read the previous blog in this series.

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