Best Moments and Surprises from Paris: 2022 Medical Affairs Professional Society Meeting

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A few months ago I spoke live across social media with four colleagues, experts and Medical Affairs senior leaders with diverse, global perspectives across pharma and medical devices to discuss some of the best moments and surprises from the Medical Affairs Professional Society's (MAPS) May 2022 Meeting in Paris which we attended. The conversation was a recap of this meeting yet with lots of very forward looking concepts many of you, my friends and colleagues, may enjoy reviewing, particularly as we prepare for the 2023 European meeting to be held in Lisbon by MAPS. So listen to this conversation with Marc Sirockman, Global Chief Executive Officer of MedEvoke; Meg Heim, President and Founder of Heim Global Consulting; Marcus West CEO and Co-Founder of 60seconds.com, and Viorica Braniste, Medical Excellence and Patient Engagement Director at Kyowa Kirin, which emphasizes some of the most pressing issues our Medical division is facing in the industry as we anticipate more developments in our Age of Information. Meg Heim highlights innovative qualitative research in R & D demonstrating Medical Affairs' value earlier in a product lifecycle from Kyowa Kirin as an example of how far along the drug development pipeline the division is able to impact with meaning. Marc reminds the group about the powerful turning point Medical Affairs is undergoing presently, summarized by the meeting's theme "The Medical Affairs' Time to Lead is Now". He mentions that while digital information has exploded over the last two years, Medical has outgrown other functions and it is critical to communicate its value internally to receive the appropriate funding and resources. Marcus speaks about the need for enhancing the coaching culture and real time feedback in Medical - a recurring theme at the meeting. Viorica addresses the unmet need of coaching and training to connect medical insights with powerful business impact to critical diverse stakeholders. Throughout our discussion, we concede how fragmented Medical continues to be in its organization, and why we must change our communication to be more consistent with our environment. We recall an inspirational quote from the meeting shared by Ben Bryant, a veteran pharma executive coach, who said "Leaders are not paid to make the inevitable happen. They are paid to make happen what would otherwise not happen". Our group refers to several sessions about shortening the lag time from generating to capturing to communicating insights, and we compare raw medical insights to oil, which if "unrefined" by definitions or context, become difficult to translate into value. Thus, Marc encourages pharma to begin to "ask for help" more because data insights are becoming overwhelming to manage alone without various agencies and life science solution providers. We also discuss intriguing, controversial, but also encouraging moments from the meeting such as the growing critical need of "ROI" of Medical and performance metrics as well as new conversations about Medical's potential in guiding an entire organization in improving the accuracy of their Sales forecasts. Avishek Pal, Scientific Communications Director at Novartis Oncology in Basel, Switzerland, relays his impressions of the importance of the "cross functional co-creation journey" between Medical Education, Field Medical as well as their insights, and multi-channel and formats of Medical Education to improve how pharma reaches healthcare professionals across the globe. So we look forward to more conversations on leadership, metrics, mentorship, as well as prescriber and patient engagement and education perspectives (comment on our discussion from Gorana Dasic, a pharma executive from Pfizer), at the upcoming 2023 meeting in Lisbon as well. Finally, we discuss the value of joining the incredible non-profit MAPS society, its Mentorship program, and vote on our favorite cities for future meetings after Lisbon: Florence, Berlin, Milan, Rome, Tbilisi, Dubrovnik.