RESUMO
Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess the opinions of healthcare professional regarding the contributions of the Medical Affairs department. Furthermore, we aimed to identify factors influencing and reasons for the contributions in the new coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic situation.Design/Methods: A web-based survey was conducted among healthcare professionals (Key Opinion Leader/Key Thought Leader, KOL/KTL) who had multiple contacts with the Medical Affairs department, Japan.Results: The responses of 141 KOL/KTLs in Japan were collected; 77.3% of the respondents indicated that the contributions of the Medical Affairs department exceeded their expectations (achieved the expected level of contribution). The most common responses were “the identification of unmet medical needs” and “the dissemination of medical and scientific information, providing advanced medical and scientific information;” other responses included “promoting sales of the company's drugs.” The requests from KOL/KTLs regarding quality were “knowledge about biological and clinical statistics” and “proposal and quick response ability from the perspective of medical staff and patients,” but these responses were partially different between physicians and pharmacists. COVID-19 has resulted in substantial changes, for example, “face-to-face” interactions have significantly decreased from 91.5 to 50.4% and “Online” interactions have significantly increased from 20.6 to 70.9%. However, the effects of the declaration of emergency state could not be identified. The KOL/KTLs requested to make the meeting times more appropriate, conduct in-depth two-way discussions, provide latest information, and discuss about professional manners and behaviors.Conclusion: In summary, regardless of the changes in the types of activities caused by COVID-19, the Medical Affairs department has made substantial contributions to healthcare professionals, who highly appreciated them. Furthermore, depending on responses of individuals whose expectations could not be met, areas of improvements have been suggested.
RESUMO
Objective: To identify the organizational structure and medical contributions of Medical Affairs/Medical Science Liaison (MA/MSL) and its impact on the spread of the coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) infection.Method: We conducted a web-based survey for 45 pharmaceutical companies based in Japan. The outcome of 43 questions related to organizational structure, business activities, key performance indicators (KPI), and indicators of medical contribution were analyzed and compared.Results: Responses were received from 43 pharmaceutical companies (95.6%; 26 Japanese and 17 foreign). The total number of MSLs exceeded 1,000 with an average of 30.1 MSLs/company. MSLs supervised an average of 21.8/MSL Key Opinion Leaders/Key Thought Leaders (KOLs/KTLs). There were eight MSL organizations per company on average, and Phase II/III had the most number of MSL organizations. Further, 22 companies (56.4%) had MSL organizations in the oncology area. All the companies were independent from departments mainly engaged in "sales and promotion activities," and the most common KPI was “collection insight from KOL/KTL.” Despite having medical qualifications and highly specialized degrees, training was provided continuously to improve expertise. Based on the life cycle of products, Japanese companies are promoting evidence generation and medical events with KOL/KTL supported by internal and external insights and foreign companies are promoting medical-education activities. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of “in person” activities have significantly decreased and that of "online" activities have increased considerably, and this trend might continue even after the end of the pandemic.Conclusion: The organizational structure and medical contribution of MA/MSL are partially different between Japanese and foreign companies. MSL continued to increase; however, the organization and activities were affected by the product.