Payers drive so much revenue for pharmaceutical companies that the industry recognizes the importance of creating and maintaining effective relationships with the payer community. A key aspect of those relationships revolves around providing health outcomes information. The medical affairs function has long been involved in the dissemination of medical information to external stakeholders so, not surprisingly, many pharma companies have turned to this function to aid in payer interactions.
However, medical affairs organizations often face challenges in executing effective payer interactions and maintaining appropriately sized and trained field groups for payer engagement and market access activities.
Best Practices, LLC undertook this benchmarking study to understand the role of medical affairs in critical payer interactions and to highlight strategies for building and maintaining effective relationships with payers. In particular, this study provides benchmarks around payer segmentation and prioritization as well as the optimal field force levels, talent and training for ensuring effective payer relationships.
This study includes segments for large and small companies and US only and global.
KEY TOPICS
Talent Background and Training
Knowledge Sharing
Payer Segmentation and Prioritization
Medical Affairs and Payer Resource Ratios
KEY METRICS
Effectiveness of staff’s educational backgrounds for payer services
Effectiveness of staff’s experiences for payer services
Necessary qualifications for success in payer communication
Scope of training for Medical Affairs employees serving payers
Critical success factors for strong communication with payers
Knowledge sharing via an internal group
Collaboration of Medical Affairs group with supporting functions that directly interact with payers
Knowledge sharing channels and their effectiveness
Collaboration with field-based teams
Effectiveness of segmenting payers by listed criteria and strategies
Importance of different influencers/payers on market access
Medical Affairs spend as percentage of total revenue
Medical Affairs spend per Medical Affairs FTE
Payer staff as percentage of total Medical Affairs employees
SAMPLE KEY FINDINGS
Training the Talent: Scientific information and communicating real world data are among the top training areas for payer-oriented staff. While 67% of the participants design structured trainings on scientific information, 59% do so on translating real world evidence into effective messages.
Regardless of company size, training on scientific data, regulations and compliance are critical for pharma. However, larger companies have a more focus on training that brings a business approach into perspective. For example, training on communication and business understanding is as important for larger companies as training on scientific, regulatory and compliance information.
METHODOLOGY
This study reflects the data of 29 survey responses from Medical Affairs leaders at 27 biopharmaceutical companies.
BENCHMARK CLASS
Industries Profiled:
Pharmaceutical; Biopharmaceutical; Biotech; Manufacturing; Chemical; Health Care
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