Medical affairs is in a time of transition. According to the ZS medical affairs outlook report 2024, 70% of medical affairs professionals say their teams are in an evolving phase of organizational maturity. They’ve moved beyond the nascent phase but are not yet best in class.
At the same time, pharmaceutical companies are increasingly looking to medical affairs to help shape the market so that patients receive the therapies that deliver the best outcomes. These companies also want to measure the effectiveness of medical affairs outreach. They may wonder, for example, did those three touch points with a key opinion leader (KOL) in a six-month span lead to a positive outcome? All in all, it seems that pharmaceutical companies will expect their medical affairs teams to play a greater role in helping achieve commercial success in the coming years.
Many medical affairs professionals may wonder how their resource-constrained teams can pursue so many new objectives when their longtime, important work remains. We believe AI, machine learning and data-driven technologies from ZS have the potential to automate repetitive tasks, augment interactions and solve critical challenges (see our interactive graphic). These technologies will also free up medical affairs to focus on personal engagement and evidence dissemination. Technology can’t help with everything—medical affairs professionals must develop strategies, communication plans and more. But aligning technology capabilities and human expertise offers the potential for medical affairs teams to make increasingly significant contributions.
How expertise, ZS and ZAIDYN technology can help solve medical affairs challenges
Solving medical affairs challenges with ZAIDYN
Through ZAIDYN solutions and its other technology offerings, ZS has helped clients tackle common medical affairs challenges.
- Quantify care gaps
- Engage healthcare providers
- Optimize field medical efforts
Improving patient outcomes with ZAIDYN Care Gaps
We used our ZAIDYN Care Gaps solution to help a client understand and quantify care gaps in the non-small-cell lung cancer market and their potential link to patient outcomes. With this information, the client was able to develop integrated evidence generation and scientific communications strategies. The client ultimately reprioritized care gaps based on how they affect patient outcomes.
Using ZAIDYN Opinion Leader Intelligence for better stakeholder engagement
A medical affairs team at a large pharmaceutical company used the AI-driven ZAIDYN Opinion Leader Intelligence solution to profile more than 500,000 healthcare providers and review claims analysis from more than 5 million patients. With these findings in hand, the client was able to identify nearly 350 KOLs to add to its target list, as well as 53 “rising stars.” Insights from ZAIDYN Opinion Leader Intelligence helped the client create better content and improve engagement with key targets.
Building a one-stop solution with ZAIDYN Pulse
We helped an emerging pharma company achieve a smoother workflow and improve decision-making by using ZAIDYN Pulse to track, monitor and gain insights into their field medical efforts. The client was able to create a one-stop solution for medical affairs tracking and management while improving operational efficiencies and reducing manual interventions.
Healthcare provider engagement in a hybrid environment
With KOLs saying they expect about 40% of their interactions with medical affairs to be virtual, the importance of leveraging technology to tackle these engagement challenges only becomes more critical. While some pharmaceutical companies may try to solve these challenges in house, external partners with industry expertise like ZS can help simplify and accelerate their progress.
Connect with us to learn how ZAIDYN helps medical affairs.
