The Secret to Sound KOL Research—It’s Not a Data Dump

August 16, 2012 · Leave a comment

Industry Insights from Brian Castle

There are many ways that life science companies approach finding the right key opinion leaders in medicine to collaborate on next-generation treatments.

Some have the privilege of retaining staff members with decades of experience, during which they get to know the top doctors in their therapeutic area or disease state.  This do-it-yourself (“DIY”) method can be fraught with challenges, but it can also provide valuable insights through sound relationship building.

Other companies, to fill gaps in compliance or expertise within a given area, will contract with research organizations for their KOL work.  There are now over fifty companies (and counting) engaged in some form of key opinion leader identification, profiling, mapping, or engagement planning activities, and that’s not even counting the dozens of specialty medical communications agencies  and larger agencies that list medcomms as a specialty area.

Contracting with external vendors can result in great work, full of insights on the right medical professionals who can make a difference in whether a product succeeds or fails in getting in the right hands—those of patients.  But it can also result in really bad work—a data dump—that basically tells the buyer nothing.

We can define bad research quite easily—you know it when you see it. It often comes from methodologies that are suspect at first glance, those that rely upon too much ... read more »

TAGS: Brian Castle  clinical trials  communications agencies  editorial boards  key opinion leaders  key opinion leaders in medicine  KOL identification  KOL mapping  KOL profiling  KOL relationship building  KOL research  life science companies  life sciences  media exposure  medical communications agencies  medical journals  medical professionals  patient health  public health  regulatory approval  reimbursement approval  scientific advisory boards  scientific journals  Thought Leader Select  thought leaders  treatment guidelines

Use of Social Media in Healthcare

February 9, 2011 · Leave a comment

Trendspotting with Kristen Smithwick

There’s been plenty of talk in recent months about the impact of social media on the future of healthcare. Many stakeholders are carving out their own space within the social media sphere, with customized strategies that fit their respective ambitions and external pressures, such as regulatory guidelines.

Biopharmaceutical companies are beginning to craft social media strategies and experiment with different activities; the FDA is reviewing potential social media guidelines; and medical professionals are individually using social media in a variety of ways. A recent article in MedAd News says that “according to Manhattan Research, 89 million American adults used social media for health in 2010”. That’s a staggering figure –nearly 30% of the American population used social media sites to discuss health-related issues. Evidence that the use of social media in healthcare is here to stay has even hit pop culture, when last week’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy featured Dr. Bailey tweeting her surgery play-by-play. Upon seeing how much visibility his department could attain within the medical community, even Chief Webber jumped on board!

At Thought Leader Select, we’re also examining how to better understand the ways that thought leaders in the medical community use social media. In our quest to stay on top of the trends among medical experts, we’d ... read more »

TAGS: biopharmaceutical companies  customized strategies  FDA  Grey’s anatomy  healthcare  KOL  Kristen Smithwick  medical professionals  physician-to-physician  regulatory guidelines  Sermo  social media  social media outlets  social media strategies  Thought Leader Select  thought leaders  trendspotting

Thought Leader Select’s Noureddine Launches Non-Profit Aimed at Career Development for Medical Professionals

December 23, 2010 · Leave a comment

Press Release Out Today from the Offices of Thought Leader Select

December 23, 2010 (CHAPEL HILL, NC)—Dr. Maher “Max” Noureddine, a noted Parkinson’s disease researcher and chief scientific officer at North Carolina-based research firm Thought Leader Select, is leaving the company to launch the Institute for Advanced Career Development (IACD) on January 3, 2011.

The institute will offer an array of programs for medical professionals seeking to advance their academic careers in their respective medical fields.  Programs on offer will include a physician-centric curriculum called MedMentors, courses for nurses called RNMentors, and courses for pharmacists and veterinarians called PharMentors and VetMentors, respectively.

In addition to the programs centered on leadership in allied health professions, Dr. Noureddine will lead development courses for legal professionals interested in understanding the science of DNA-based evidence.  Dr. Noureddine is trained in human molecular genetics with years of laboratory research experience at top institutions such as UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke Medical Center, and The National Institutes of Health.

“I am excited to take all of my scientific training and combine it with my experience in working directly with leading academic medical specialists from across the globe,” stated Noureddine. “While I am sad to be leaving Thought Leader Select, I am doing so with the company’s complete endorsement—they really believe in what I’m doing to advance scientific careers for better healthcare delivery. ... read more »

TAGS: allied health professionals  biopharmaceutical  DNA-based evidence  Duke University Medical Cetner  healthcare  Institute for Advanced Career Development  KOL engagement  KOL identification  KOL profiling  Maher Noureddine  medical professionals  MedMentors  National Institutes of Health  nurses  Paul Meade  pharmacists  physicians  RNMentors  Thought Leader Emerge  Thought Leader Index  Thought Leader Select  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill  veterinarians

The Future of Thought Leaders in Healthcare

December 10, 2010 · Leave a comment

Industry Insights from Paul Meade, M.Sc, MPH

For decades, the pharmaceutical industry has had a good working relationship with the medical profession. Of course, pharmaceutical companies have always been dependent on physicians writing prescriptions for their products, and for pharmacists filling these prescriptions, so ultimately the patients could return to health. This has been a true symbiotic relationship where pharmaceutical companies needed doctors to prescribe their drugs, and physicians had effective medicines to offer their patients.

Occasionally, there were a few bad apples on both sides of the equation that overstepped the boundaries of this relationship, but for the most part, it worked well. So what happened? Why the Sunshine Act? And why the apparent “witch-hunt” to expose every Thought Leader that engages with someone from a pharmaceutical company? Is it time for a course correction? Don’t we have bigger problems to deal with in the financial and economic arenas than to worry about how much money a Thought Leader made from conducting clinical studies or speaking at a conference on behalf of a pharmaceutical company?

Where did it all go wrong? How do we fix it? And what does the future hold for this pharma-medical relationship? Healthcare costs have been steadily rising in most countries across the globe. And while there have been increases in these costs, almost no other country has ... read more »

TAGS: compensation  drug companies  ethics  healthcare  healthcare bill  healthcare reform  medical professionals  pharma  pharma-medical relationship  pharmaceutical companies  pharmaceutical industry  pharmacists  physicians  prescriptions  Sunshine Act  thought leader