Poor Medical Education Performance Likely Due to Misaligned Pharma Structures

57% of U.S. Pharma Medical Education Teams Support Products Across Multiple Therapeutic Areas

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.

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