It is very common to see advisory board meetings being conducted for a consensus publication on the management of a disease condition. Very often these exercises are futile, as a simple literature search shows that there are plenty of consensus statements for the same disease and often from the same country too!! I have had 2 clients who conducted advisory board meetings for a consensus on the same disease condition, with the same panel of HCPs, for 2 consecutive years!!! Of course, since the previous projects were not done by me, I was not aware until I started work and did a literature search. Unless there has been new evidence that calls for a significant change in the diagnosis and/or treatment of a disease, it makes no sense to do such activities. Not only is it a huge waste of resources, but the KOLs involved also understand why it is being done- their participation will remain perfunctory and the organization will never earn their respect.
However, have you ever conducted an advisory board meeting to discuss recently published, updated international guidelines for a disease? In fact, such meetings can be a better start for refining your medical communication strategy rather than a consensus meeting.
If structured well, such discussions can provide insights into the clinicians’ thoughts and which recommendations of guidelines you can capitalize on for your product promotion in the market, and which guideline recommendations are likely to affect the use of your product unless you are able to come up with convincing arguments.
I have provided in the above graphic a list of some insights that you can focus on in these meetings. This is just a general direction. They need to be customized based on the disease area and your product.
Get more creative about advisory boards to drive better engagement with the HCPs. Get away from the routine consensus meetings and forced patient profile discussions.
MedicoMindsPro 