As medical affairs organizations work to understand the evolving demands and expectations of stakeholders, the vast majority say they are in an evolving phase of organizational maturity—they’ve moved beyond the nascent phase, but they’re not yet best in class. These organizations are striving to establish robust strategic planning processes, design well-coordinated roles and responsibilities and enable data-driven decision-making.
Many are also focused on adapting to and thriving in a hybrid engagement landscape. In the ZS medical affairs outlook report 2023, we found key opinion leaders expect about 40% of their interactions to be virtual in 2024 and beyond, with more than half of them interacting with a virtual medical science liaison in the past year.
Other key findings from the outlook report include:
- Omnichannel maturity: More than half of medical affairs personnel said their organization has at least a foundational state of omnichannel interaction capabilities and they’re focusing on optimizing the customer experience through personalized solutions. Together, these strategies will help organizations enhance customer centricity.
- Investment areas: Medical affairs personnel indicated field medical as the top area of investment. They also said their organizations are becoming more agile by focusing on tools and technology, insight generation, impact measurement, real-world evidence strategy and more.
- Scientific market shaping: More than 60% of key opinion leaders indicated they would prefer medical science liaisons begin scientific engagements during or before phase 3 of clinical trials.
Additional insights on patient centricity, how medical affairs and key opinion leaders can work together and more are available in the ZS medical affairs outlook report 2023.