Four Key Strategies for Optimizing Your Medical Congress Strategy

David Medina Tato
Vice president of strategy
Veeva Link Key People

Field medical education before launch is linked to greater launch success, improving treatment adoption by up to 50%. New data also finds that biopharmas investing in pre-launch scientific outreach gain 40% faster treatment adoption.

Conferences, in particular, have the strongest influence on clinical decisions. While supporting new clinical guidelines and securing coverage in publications are important foundational elements of HCP education, conferences and congresses and the digital discussions kicked off by those events (e.g., conversations on social media) create a halo effect that amplifies scientific information more so than other scientific activities. Dialogue with medical leaders reveal key trends and new practices to consider when planning a medical congress strategy.

Streamline Congress Research

Nearly all medical conferences turned virtual during the pandemic. Since the return of in-person activities, there seem to be more congresses than ever before. "You often don't realize what you have until it's gone,” explains Carolina Lowe, associate vice president of medical engagement and capabilities at United Therapeutics. “There are now more conferences, and the industry relies on them more to engage with thought leaders."

With over 800,000 events worldwide, biopharmas have many choices for when and where to present scientific data, allowing for greater flexibility. Global events can reach more people, while local ones enable more targeted presentations to specific groups. Yet, identifying the most relevant events to prioritize is getting harder.

John Eckardt, oncology external scientific engagement leader at Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine, pointed out a barrier to making the most of congresses, saying, “Getting the right information to the right audience is a challenge.” This is partly due to the time-intensive research needed to keep up with the changing landscape of congresses.

Strategy 1: Equip your teams with a single source of real-time intelligence on congresses to streamline research. This way, they can spend more time on analysis, planning, and execution.

Diversify Your Congress Strategy

As treatments get more complex, a wider range of healthcare professionals, like nurse practitioners and physician assistants, make decisions in caring for patients. Medical teams now need to consider a broader audience when choosing which congresses to attend. Lowe says, “You can't just rely on the usual experts anymore. You also need to consider the entire patient journey and understand who makes decisions along the way.”

In areas like oncology, multidisciplinary care teams are more common, making it harder to decide which HCPs to focus on and which congresses are most important. For instance, bladder cancer is discussed at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) conference, which oncologists primarily attend. Eckardt points out, “Focusing solely on ASCO means missing many urologists, and attending only AUA [American Urological Association] means losing out on oncologists.”

Medical affairs teams also need to expand their focus beyond just top-tier scientific thought leaders. Engaging early-career HCPs can help boost new treatment uptake. These digitally-savvy emerging experts are four times more likely to start patients on a new treatment. They are also five times more likely to speak at congresses, eleven times more likely to engage digitally, and seven times more likely to get published. In doing so, medical teams can drive greater impact on launch success.

Strategy 2: Maximize your reach by varying the types of congresses you attend. A mix of global, regional, and local events can increase visibility broadly while allowing for more focused, targeted presentations.

Personalize Every Engagement

Online shopping and streaming services have led us to expect personalization in every aspect of our lives, and KOLs are no exception. They expect medical scientific liaisons (MSLs) to know their backgrounds, areas of interest, and recent scientific activities.

If medical teams do thorough research, they can tailor their interactions with KOLs based on shared interests and uncover collaboration opportunities. Eckardt emphasizes the importance of making engagements valuable to KOLs, saying, “Optimizing your engagements is crucial. You want thought leaders to get the most value from each meeting.”

Companies should also coordinate their approach to contacting KOLs. “It's counterproductive to have eight different people reaching out to the same KOL,” Eckardt cautions. "Thought leaders expect a unified approach from your company.”

Strategy 3: Provide in-depth KOL profiles for better preparation and more personalized conversations. Coordinate clinical, medical, and commercial teams to ensure a seamless experience with your company.

Understand the Treatment Landscape

In the last ten years, competition has gotten tougher due to a sharp increase in the number of clinical trials. In this highly competitive environment, it's a challenge to make your treatment stand out and show its unique contribution to improving care.

Gathering feedback from face-to-face meetings at congresses is vital for understanding where your treatment stands in the market. Monitoring online reactions to competitors' presentations adds important insights beyond what’s learned in person. Lowe emphasizes, "the role of digital opinion leaders in sharing insights and data from congresses is more crucial than ever."

Strategy 4: Monitor and track digital reactions to competitor presentations —and the reception of their data— to enrich insights collected from in-person engagements.

In the competitive and fast-changing world of healthcare, optimizing participation in medical congresses is key for biopharmas to effectively engage KOLs and communicate treatment advances to HCPs. By implementing the strategies above, companies can maximize their impact at medical congresses, fostering collaborations and discussions that advance patient care and treatment innovations.

David Medina Tato is vice president of strategy for Veeva Link Key People.