Did you know that medical affairs has grown over 300% in the last 10 years? And during that same time, medical affairs team value also rose. But 2020 has been a very different year, and medical affairs teams have had to change how they operate.

Before lockdowns and virtual everything, most medical affairs and medical science liaison (MSL) teams were “on the go,” traveling to meet with key opinion leaders (KOLs), going to medical conferences, and meeting with regulators. But COVID-19 changed all of that and forced us to come up with new and innovative ways to do our jobs.

Because medical affairs metrics are usually long-term and not tied to prescription sales, pharmaceutical industry senior executives may question the medical affairs team value and, as we have seen during COVID-19, many companies have downsized and laid off their MSL or medical affairs teams. Here are 4 ways to maximize value now:

• Volunteer to help your cross-functional partners for team meetings or external stakeholder meetings (payers, regulatory bodies, etc..).
• Use the leftover travel budget to invest in your team.
• Take this time to analyze your medical insights and come up with a better strategy for 2021
• Give each MSL a project to correspond to another functional group (clinical, regulatory, marketing, etc..) and set clear expectations on deliverables.

Your medical affairs teams should provide more than just information and an occasional offer to help— it needs to be integrated on a day-to-day basis with the rest of the organization.

Choose to focus on actions that have more of an immediate impact. Highlight to your team what “Great” looks like. Implementing these 4 steps can help transform your medical affairs team and generate both short- and long-term value for years to come.