Too often, a pharmaceutical company’s senior management team questions the ‘value’ a medical affairs organization brings to a company. Why? We never do this to clinical or commercial because the deliverables are short term and concrete. The fact that we even question the value of data dissemination and generation (the fundamental role of medical affairs) reflects the fact that far too often even senior-level executives aren’t thinking long term and don’t completely understand what medical affairs do.

Let’s look at some objective data. Several well known consulting outfits have shown from physician surveys that doctors want information from their scientific peers. Additionally, 60% of the time, physicians write drugs off-label. As the underlying complexity of drugs increases due to scientific advancements, we will become even more reliant on medical affairs as a first-line conduit of education. This has significant business ramifications.

Measuring Medical Affairs Value

Sales reps simply cannot provide this level of depth as scientific breakthroughs advance. So how then do we measure medical affairs value?

We focus on production and outcomes. Yes, production. Our industry has become so afraid of quantitative metrics on the medical side because it smells sales-ish … and that scares compliance.

But just because something has become synonymous with sales doesn’t make its origins sales like. There are many professions outside of pharma where quantitative metrics are necessary to measure impact. And we don’t see it as sales-ish. Qualitative measures are just as important but we do need quantitative measures to provide some context.

The 2015 victory for Amarin over the FDA around off-label promotion adds another dimension to what medical affairs can and cannot say. Make no mistake, there will be other companies that will follow in Amarin’s footsteps and this may just be the impetus needed for us to reassess whether the pendulum has swung too far to the right for far too long.