Poor Medical Education Performance Likely Due to Misaligned Pharma Structures

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC--(Marketwired - December 27, 2016) - New analysis of more than a dozen life sciences medical education teams partially attributes poor performance to strategic misalignment of educational and external facing medical groups' – such as medical publications and medical science liaisons – strategies.

A new study published by business intelligence firm, Cutting Edge Information, shows that misaligned medical education and medical communication structures often end up muddling the drug company's overall educational message to the medical community. The study found that drug companies often opt to establish a global medical education team to solve strategic misalignments. But, as one interviewed executive noted, installing a global team is a "common Band-Aid solution." The study found that medical education teams need to put in the hard work to coordinate with regional and country-level teams on a cohesive strategy.

Industry-driven medical education programs are largely non-existent in the United States due to regulatory restrictions. That does not mean, however, that pharmaceutical companies have stopped investing in medical education activities. In fact, 57% of U.S. pharmaceutical medical education teams support part of the company's portfolio across multiple therapeutic areas. However, the remaining 43% of surveyed U.S. firms were responsible for all products across their entire portfolio.

The data in Medical Education: Innovating CME to Improve Patient Outcomes show a difference across country-level, U.S. and global level medical education teams. For example, only 13% of global medical education teams support products across multiple therapeutic areas. Conversely, 42% of surveyed country-level medical education teams are responsible for products in a single therapeutic area. Still, approximately 30% or more of surveyed teams support the entire portfolio, and 13% of surveyed global teams manage only one product. Importantly, the type of product does not seem to affect the medical education team's structure.

"Medical education team structure varies by the size of the product portfolio, decision-making processes and the actual activities for which teams are responsible," said Natalie DeMasi, research team leader at Cutting Edge Information. "As far as decision making goes, most teams surveyed set their medical education strategies at the global level, but regional teams can modify these strategies to meet local needs."

Finally, the medical education teams surveyed for the study report the number of investigational and marketed products they supported over the past three years. As a whole, the majority of surveyed medical education teams have increased their number of supported products from 2014 to 2016.

Medical Education: Innovating CME to Improve Patient Outcomes, available at https://www.cuttingedgeinfo.com/product/medical-education/, includes detailed metrics, best practices and insights into four main areas of medical education:

• Unaccredited, company-driven medical education
• Independent medical education (IME) grants
• Speaker recruitment
• Speaker training

This report examines medical education budget and staffing resources, as well as activities, trends, and event planning approaches. It highlights new, exciting ways that teams are elevating the value of medical education.

For more information about Cutting Edge Information's medical affairs and medical education industry research, visit https://www.cuttingedgeinfo.com/product-category/medical-affairs/.

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