Medical Affairs Unscripted

Whether your drug is in an early development phase or in the lifecycle management phase, it is important to know when and how to invest in Medical Affairs. In their discussion this month, Peg and John Yee, MD, MPH and former CMO at Sobi, focus on the value of and the critical need to invest in Medical Affairs. They see Medical Affairs as the “bridge” across all functions and that it sits at the intersection of medicine, science, and business. They highlight the need to communicate and engage with the commercial side of the organization while building a Medical Affairs team and Dr. Yee describes how each team member should be a “triple threat” in the areas of scientific excellence, business acumen, and emotional intelligence. He provides first-hand experience and advice on all of these topics, and we believe that CMOs will find a wealth of Medical Affairs knowledge in this podcast.

Medical Affairs is going through a digital transformation. What this means, what it will look like, and what value it will bring to pharmaceutical and biotech companies is still unknown. Over the remainder of 2023, we’ll be releasing additional short form podcasts, podcast bytes, where we discuss this topic with our guests. Janet Loesberg, PharmD, SVP of Global Medical Affairs at Blueprint Medicine, is our first guest and we greatly appreciate her insights. We look forward to delving into this topic on future episodes.

Are you leading or building a Medical Affairs organization? This month Peg had a great conversation with Janet Loesberg where they discussed leadership and the barriers to success in Medical Affairs. Janet Loesberg, PharmD, Senior Vice-President of Global Medical Affairs at Blueprint Medicine, and a biotech board member, brings many years of experience, holding a variety of leadership positions in the pharmaceutical industry. She delivers great advice and perspectives focused on leading in Global and US Medical Affairs, building a team with the right person matched to the right role, and ensuring communication across the team. Dr. Peg Crowley-Nowick as Head of Medical Affairs at Lumanity has worked with many teams to support leadership development. She adds her perspective and experience while facilitating this podcast.3

Defining metrics and KPIs for demonstration of value is a significant challenge for leaders in Medical Affairs. During this episode of Medical Affairs unscripted, Dr. Crowley-Nowick speaks with Dr. Randy Krauss, Head of Metrics, Analytics, & Performance in Global Clinical Operations at Merck. They discuss the key ideas, lessons learned, and recommendations that have come from Dr. Krauss’s work in clinical operations and how those ideas can be translated into the Medical Affairs space. The objective of this podcast is to stimulate discussion about measurements and value in a more effective way.

During the latest episode of our Medical Affairs unscripted podcast, Dr. Crowley-Nowick speaks with Dr. Robin Winter-Sperry, Former Global Field Based Medical Lead at Ipsen Biopharmaceuticals. The conversation covers:

- What Field Based Medical entails and the roles of Medical Science Liaisons and Field Medical Directors across the globe
- What skills are required of field based medical teams today and what the future holds
- The unique requirements of those managing a field based medical team
- How training can vary significantly across different regions
- How to measure the value of field based medical teams both internally and externally

During this episode of Medical Affairs unscripted, the roles are reversed and Dr. Crowley-Nowick speaks with guest interviewer Dennis Crowley (of The Entrepreneur's Story podcast) about Zipher continuing its journey in Medical Affairs as a part of Lumanity. They discuss Zipher’s history, the acquisition, the integration, and how Zipher, now Lumanity, fits into the larger company structure. Dr. Crowley-Nowick explains how being a part of Lumanity is beneficial to our clients while including some of the new product offerings and capabilities of the expanded team. They reflect on how smoothly and seamlessly the integration has been and discuss some of Dr. Crowley Nowick’s goals for the organization going forward.

During this episode of Medical Affairs unscripted, Dr. Crowley-Nowick continues the conversation with Holly Schachner, MD, SVP, Clinical Development at North Sea Therapeutics, discussing how the landscape has changed since they last spoke, two and a half years ago, as the pandemic was just unfolding. They also discuss how Medical Affairs continues to play an integral role in bridging across functions, bringing key stakeholders to the table, so that getting needed therapies to patients remains their central mission.

With the pharmaceutical industry becoming more and more heavily competitive, knowing how to conduct an insightful and multidimensional assessment of your Medical Science Liaison (MSL) team to identify gaps and hire the right MSLs to not only accelerate a corporate competitive advantage, but also to cultivate the natural diversity of a proper team for internal peer-to-peer development and external stakeholder rapport is more critical than ever.  

With an extensive and influential career in Medical Affairs (MA) at Sanofi Pasteur spanning more than two decades starting in the field and now the current Senior Director of the Field Medical Team in the Vaccines therapeutic unit at Sanofi Pasteur, Christina Tankersley, PharmD has mastered the know-how of building, training, and maturing a diverse, multidisciplinary MSL team. She joins Dr. Peg Crowley-Nowick, Founder and President of Zipher Medical Affairs on this inaugural podcast of the second season of Zipher Medical Affairs Unscripted to share her invaluable experience on how to intentionally identify key diversities needed in constructing a balanced and symbiotic MSL team, and how to overcome the challenges of unifying team members across the now common virtual office settings. Dr. Crowley-Nowick also draws on Dr. Tankersley’s vast experience and innate propensity for coaching and mentoring to discuss the possible pitfalls of the industry’s current trend in condensing the onboarding experience for MSLs and potentially driving MSLs into the field prematurely and asks her to expound on her innovative approach for onboarding. Lastly, Dr. Tankersley characterizes the fundamental cornerstone of an MSL development plan and fostering actions to support that vision.

Leading Medical Affairs (MA) organizations have begun to strategically redefine their team’s requisite executional capabilities to enhance and tailor frontline engagement initiatives, to improve the impact of knowledge development (insights and evidence generation), and to further solidify their position as a vital leader rather than a support function within the biopharmaceutical industry. These executional capabilities ultimately accelerate the time to market, creating a competitive advantage as well as (and most importantly) maximizes the number of patients reached with life-saving treatments.

Dr. Tamas Suto is passionately dedicated to improving the lives of patients and public health as evidenced by his decades in not only direct patient care, but also in industry spanning the commercialization process from identification of a drug candidate through the end of the lifecycle of a compound. His extensive experience in large pharma as a global executive in MA leadership at Sanofi, Amgen, and Roche/Genentech prior to his current position as SVP., & Head of Global MA Oncology at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany underpins his well-founded and impressive vision of the critical capabilities of the MA team. Dr. Peg Crowley-Nowick, Founder and President of Zipher Medical Affairs, guides Dr. Suto in this podcast in sharing the paramount yet foundational competencies for impactful individual contributions in each of the four key elements of the MA team pursuits: insights, evidence generation, stakeholder engagement, and medical leadership. 

Our host Peg Crowley-Nowick, PhD, MBA, Founder & President of Zipher Medical Affairs and Muriel Siadak, PAC, Senior Medical Director at Seagen Inc., spotlight the ever-increasing value and impact of insights on product strategy, positioning, and tactics. As Medical Affairs (MA) teams are now more than ever asking deeper, multifaceted questions to gain insights about the drivers of patient and healthcare professional decisions, Ms. Siadak, shares her vast experience in MA to help us explore the importance of ensuring that insights are appropriately gathered, disseminated to and discussed with internal stakeholders, and leveraged cross functionally.

Contact Zipher at www.ziphermed.com/contact to learn how to develop a program within your organization.