Thoughts on the MSL Society’s Inaugural Conference

April 17, 2013 · Leave a comment

Industry Insights from Paul Meade, M.Sc, MPH

Allison Murphy and I had the pleasure of participating in the MSL Society’s inaugural global conference and gala in Philadelphia earlier this month.  At Thought Leader Select, we always enjoy the opportunity to meet some of our great colleagues in medical affairs in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and device industries, but this event proved to be really special.

Since joining our company last year, Allison has continued to make a real impact in the medical affairs community.  After serving much of the last decade in Eli Lilly’s medical affairs division in support of the company’s endocrinology portfolio, Allison has brought a wealth of medical affairs expertise to Thought Leader Select. This expertise has continued to evolve, even as a consultant, through her membership and advisory board participation with the MSL Society, a dynamic group that we are proud to support as a company.

Dr. Samuel Dyer, the founder and head of the MSL Society, approached us a few months ago, asking for help with the burgeoning organization’s first global event.  As a veteran of the industry myself, I have participated in many events through the years, as a participant, speaker, and sponsor. I must admit that I was more than a little skeptical about another conference/event series emerging in a space with ... read more »

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MSL Society Announces Inaugural Global Conference and Gala

February 7, 2013 · Leave a comment

For Immediate Release

February 7, 2013 (Chapel Hill, NC) The Medical Science Liaison Society (MSL Society) is planning its first global conference and gala for April 2013.

The event will take place at Philadelphia’s Hyatt at the Broadview on South Broad Street, from April 1-3.  The 2013 MSL Society Conference and Gala is the first event of its kind, a tangible extension of the non-profit organization’s mission to bring together global medical affairs professionals for education and networking in an effort to support the profession.

Attendees will include Medical Affairs and MSL Leadership, as well as other professionals focusing on key topic including KOL access, HEOR, clinical trials, clinical investigation, key opinion leader relationship management, and medical communications.  The emerging roster of speakers includes luminaries from the world of medical affairs, including Dr. Stewart Rosen, Vice President of Medical Affairs at Quintiles, Dr. Robert Ang, Vice President of Medical Affairs at Cadence Pharmaceuticals, and Dr. Elizabeth Kupferer, Director of Medical Affairs at Sequenom.  

Highlights of the three-day event include a welcome reception on day one, followed by a full day of education and networking, the gala dinner to culminate day two, and a final round of education and networking on day three.

“We’ve planned our first live conference with the needs ... read more »

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Canadian Pharma Chooses Thought Leader Select for COPD Key Opinion Leader Engagement Strategy

December 20, 2012 · Leave a comment

December 20, 2012 (CHAPEL HILL, NC) Thought Leader Select, a Chapel Hill, NC-based consulting firm serving the biopharmaceutical, medical device, and diagnostics industries, announces the commencement of a medical strategy engagement in pulmonology with a top Canadian biopharmaceutical company.

The company, part of a select group of global leaders in drug development for products treating chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), approached Thought Leader Select for support with scientific advisory boards and continuing health education (CHE) initiatives across multiple Canadian provinces.  Having already worked with Thought Leader Select to form rosters of key opinion leaders in Canadian rheumatology and oncology circles, the company will formulate its panel of key experts in pulmonology by deploying Thought Leader Select’s team to assess the skills and experiences of physician specialists across the country.

Known for the versatility of applications for its in-house research, Thought Leader Select’s research group will analyze the skills and experience of these leading experts in multiple areas where they collaborate to advance the science of medicine and patient care, including basic and clinical research, scientific journal publishing, treatment guidelines, and more.

Throughout the remainder of the engagement, Thought Leader Select’s consulting team will provide strategic guidance, tactical recommendations for strengthening key opinion leader relationships in the nursing and pharmacy communities, and a suite of tools to promote collaborative work with KOLs.  Among these ... read more »

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Thought Leader Select’s Murphy Named to MSLS Advisory Committee

November 15, 2012 · Leave a comment

The Medical Science Liaison Society, a non-profit focused on advancing the Medical Science Liaison career in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device industries, has named Thought Leader Select’s Allison Murphy to its global advisory committee.

The MSL Society, led by Dr. Samuel Dyer from its Florida headquarters, is bringing the global MSL community together through a variety of educational and networking platforms, including webinars, white papers, conferences, and multiple social media outlets.  Dr. Dyer and the MSL Society team of advisors are collaborating with several premier industry partners, including First Word Reports and EyeforPharma.

Prior to joining Thought Leader Select as a global sales consultant in 2012, Murphy spent the previous decade of her career working as a Medical Science Liaison at Eli Lilly and Company in the therapeutic area of Endocrinology.  Murphy collaborated with multiple Key Opinion Leaders to drive Lilly’s medical initiatives in support of products aimed at treating conditions ranging from diabetes to growth disorders.

“I am very proud to be a part of the MSL Society’s global advisory committee,” stated Murphy.  “I know first-hand from my days at Lilly that there weren’t enough of the right resources and networking opportunities for MSLs and Medical Affairs executives, to help them advance their careers and ... read more »

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The Necessity of Quality Measures When Profiling Thought Leaders in Medicine

October 23, 2012 · Leave a comment

Industry Insights from Paul Meade, M.Sc., MPH

There are several companies that claim to identify and profile key opinion leaders in healthcare, and they using an array of methodologies and techniques to arrive at defining the practitioners who drive a given therapeutic area or disease state. And yet, while all claim to have built a better mousetrap for profiling these thought leaders, what is sadly lacking among many these vendors is quality control and good quality measures.

Notwithstanding the variety of definitions of a key opinion leader emblematic of the lack of standardization across the industry, there is also a wide variation in the quality of the output from one vendor to the next. For instance, some companies utilize automated web-crawlers (think: glorified Google Alerts) to mine public information—for the most part, scientific publications data, and simply foist upon their clients a “data dump.” The content of these data dumps is often completely devoid of sound quality control—for example, it is not uncommon for an IT-based vendor to offer up John Smith, John D. Smith, and JD Smith as three separate KOLs, when, in reality, Dr. John D. Smith is a true one-of-a-kind. Likewise, we have also seen lists where vendors may conflate Dr. David Lee from Sacramento with Dr. David Lee from Shanghai, when human researchers would see these to ... read more »

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Top US Pharma Chooses Thought Leader Select for Obesity Centers of Excellence Initiative

October 18, 2012 · Leave a comment

October 18, 2012 (CHAPEL HILL, NC)  Thought Leader Select, a Chapel Hill, NC-based consulting firm serving the biopharmaceutical, medical device, and diagnostics industries, announces the commencement of a national engagement focused on medical centers of excellence in obesity with a top U. S. biopharmaceutical company.

The company, part of a select group of global leaders in drug development for products treating the condition of obesity, approached Thought Leader Select for support with a variety of collaborative efforts, including medical science liaison outreach to leading universities, medical schools, teaching hospitals, and specialty clinics in this area.  Having already worked with Thought Leader Select to form rosters of key opinion leaders in endocrinology, primary care, nursing, pharmacy, and long-term care in the treatment of type I and type II diabetes and obesity, the company has now chosen Thought Leader Select to pinpoint the leading centers of excellence in the treatment of obesity in the United States.

Known for the versatility of applications for its in-house research and analysis, Thought Leader Select’s research group will assess the skills and experience of selected centers, detailing the collaborative activities of leading physicians and other health care professionals, including registered nurses, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, clinical pharmacists, and medical researchers, the people who advance the science of medicine and patient care, through basic and clinical research, scientific journal ... read more »

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Top Canadian Pharma Chooses Thought Leader Select for Diabetes KOLs in Nursing, Pharmacy

September 27, 2012 · Leave a comment

(CHAPEL HILL, NC) Thought Leader Select, a Chapel Hill, NC-based consulting firm serving the biopharmaceutical, medical device, and diagnostics industries, announces the commencement of a national engagement in gastroenterology with a top Canadian biopharmaceutical company.

The company, part of a select group of global leaders in drug development for products treating type and type II diabetes, approached Thought Leader Select for support with scientific advisory boards and continuing health education (CHE) initiatives across multiple Canadian provinces.  Having already worked with Thought Leader Select to form a roster of key opinion leaders in Canadian endocrinology circles, the company will round out its roster of key opinion leaders by deploying Thought Leader Select’s team to assess the skills and experiences of registered nurses and clinical pharmacists around the country.

Known for the versatility of applications for its in-house research, Thought Leader Select’s research group will analyze the skills and experience of registered nurses and pharmacists in multiple areas where they collaborate with leading physicians to advance the science of medicine and patient care, including basic and clinical research, scientific journal publishing, treatment guidelines, and more.

Throughout the remainder of the engagement, Thought Leader Select’s consulting team will provide strategic guidance, tactical recommendations for strengthening key opinion leader relationships in the nursing and pharmacy communities, and a suite of tools to promote collaborative work with KOLs.

“Thought ... read more »

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Corporate Responsibility at Thought Leader Select

May 2, 2012 · Leave a comment

By Brian Castle and Kristen Smithwick

At Thought Leader Select, we have the privilege of working with a group of people who are always mindful of our company’s place in the big world of healthcare. We view our mission as a simple one, and that is to go about our work in ways that will always ultimately promote better patient care and public health outcomes.

We collaborate, through a strategic approach, with a variety of partner companies in the healthcare space—companies developing and commercializing pharmaceuticals, biotech treatments, medical devices, and diagnostics—as well as thousands of thought leaders, key advisors, and medical centers of excellence across more than 18 therapeutic areas covering over 50 diseases and conditions that affect millions of people around the world.

This week, we are proud to launch a new expression of our company’s mission and what we see as our responsibility to our partners across healthcare and the patients we all serve. We are proud of our team’s heritage in multiple areas of healthcare—our people have led industry teams working in brand and product commercialization, predictive medicine, and strategic planning, and they have also performed critical research work and delivered clinical care to patients alongside leading physicians in many of the top medical centers on multiple continents.

On our new Our Mission and Responsibility page, you’ll see a ... read more »

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Top 20 Global Pharma Chooses Thought Leader Select for Urology Partnership

April 18, 2012 · Leave a comment

April 18, 2012 (CHAPEL HILL, NC) Thought Leader Select, a Chapel Hill, NC-based consulting firm serving the biopharmaceutical, medical device, and diagnostics industries, announces the commencement of a urology engagement with a top 20 global pharmaceutical company.

The pharmaceutical company, a global leader in drug development for urological conditions, approached Thought Leader Select for support with its existing portfolio of medicines, as well as new drugs in its development pipeline across the Canadian market.  To meet the combined strategic needs of the company’s existing portfolio as well as its emerging pipeline, Thought Leader Select will deploy its in-house research group for a two-part assessment of the key opinion leader community in urology.

For the first wave of the assessment, the Thought Leader Select research group will validate the skills and experience of the urology specialists that currently comprise the company’s KOL roster.  In addition, Thought Leader Select will identify new physicians appropriate for the panel, bringing the total roster to 40 thought leaders across multiple Canadian provinces.

In the second phase of the assessment, Thought Leader Select’s in-house research group will engage in its exclusive, validated methodology of deep profiling, delivering objective assessments of the skills and experience of key opinion leaders across 14 areas where health care professionals define themselves as ... read more »

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Is Social Media the Right Tool for Finding Key Opinion Leaders in Medicine?

March 14, 2012 · Leave a comment

Industry Insights from Brian Castle

As in nearly all other aspects of life, social media is fast becoming a dominant force in the world of healthcare. Leading centers of excellence—hospitals, clinics, research foundations, and universities—are utilizing social media to educate patients about medical resources and treatments on a daily basis. Biopharmaceutical companies are using social media to promote new medications and further educate patients about other wellness resources at their disposal to help with debilitating diseases and conditions.

Physicians and other healthcare professionals, like practically every other profession, are embracing social media at unprecedented levels, engaging with each other on everything from new medical devices to tough medical cases. Due to this rise in HCP use of social media, some have begun to question the very essence of what makes a key opinion leader in the medical profession.

Some of these questioners have gone a step farther, at their ultimate peril, in misinterpreting physician involvement in spaces like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and physician-only social media networks like Sermo. They incorrectly perceive that social media participation is the new thought leadership.  Last year, I sat in the audience for a presentation by a leader in the pharmaceutical industry. This person posited a talking point she’d heard from an executive at a physician-only social media network:  “If you’re not in their social network, you’re not ... read more »

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