Reshaping pharmaceutical marketing: why not develop MSL?

Just for those who are now approaching pharmaceutical marketing, I would like to clarify that the acronym MSL refers to the figure of the Medical Scientific Liaison, i.e. the professional figure who is functionally dependent on the medical management, not on the sales management, and who works in contact with healthcare professionals who are considered influencers or opinion leaders by the company.

He or she organises meetings, mini meetings and hospital meetings, in which he or she is called upon to participate and in which he or she discusses among peers with physicians, creating and gathering ideas for the launch of clinical studies or for the analysis of the same on the products of the company he or she is employed by.

The relationship he builds is very high, personalised, peer to peer, with high technical scientific content and at the same time focused on joint opportunities to work or even participate in clinical work on the product. Available clinical data are analysed, scientific evidence is examined in depth, side effects are clarified and discussed, and the patient and suitable therapies are discussed.
The frontal MSL or the remote MSL®, the remote version provided as a service by Merqurio, are a valid support to the profession, not just a piece of an information activity that the company puts in place to update doctors. Obviously, the remote MSL® is carried out by profiles with high seniority, with a strong scientific background, with in-depth training courses on products, therapies, relationships, and even a little less on the commercial side.

In order to better define the activity, I would like to clarify, again for the benefit of those who know less about this type of profile, that the MSL: makes far fewer visits than a sales representative; does not work with targets or segments of doctors, but rather identifies very carefully the doctors to be met; creates a strong relationship of transparency and professionalism on the product, specifying the positive characteristics and areas of negativity. The MSL works closely with groups of doctors, encourages sharing, generates discussions and leads them and, I might add, actively values listening to doctors. The moment of encounter is not a detailing, as the English say, but an argumentation.

The MSL, whether frontal or remote, also has among its tasks: to facilitate the impartial exchange of scientific information between colleagues in the same or different facilities; to encourage meetings between opinon leaders or influencers and other doctors; to encourage meetings between doctors who have had experience of using the product with their patients and others who have not yet prescribed it; to work with doctors to create Real World Evidence together.

What distinguishes a good specialist sales representative (for the uninitiated, a specialist is a sales representative who works mainly in hospital settings, on a very limited set of products, meets with a limited number of doctors) from a fellow medical scientific liaison?

It seems little I would say, but that little is essential:

The MSL plays a cultural, conversational, educational role, we could say of mutual growth;

It generates and encourages moments of encounter between colleagues and moderates conversations;

It increases the community of experts for clinical studies and RWE studies.

With respect to all that I have written, I propose a question: why are you not working to strengthen and develop the figure of the MSL, whether it is internal to the company or remote? Or, if you are, why isn't he or she at the forefront of your processes to transform communication with the doctor?

If we are increasing conversations with physicians, if we are following the first thesis of the Clutrain Manifesto (if you don't know it, you are at zero), if we want to participate in conversations with the human voice of the company, then we need to develop the relationship similar to that of the MSL. The power of knowledge, which used to belong to the company as the first source of information for the customer, is now firmly in the hands of the doctor. The doctor's sources of information have increased so considerably over time that in many respects there is talk of information overload and an ad hoc term has been coined: infodemia, so it is difficult to imagine that the primary source of professional updating is the informant.

This has led to such a large shift in the perception and habits of the doctor, but at the same time a change in the marketing model so small that it is doubtful that marketers live on planet earth alongside doctors.

Don't have enough MSLs? Develop the remotes, who will work in coordination with the former.