Medical affairs enhances engagement with ZAIDYN® Opinion Leader Intelligence

Medical affairs is increasingly expected to contribute to expanding efforts within the organization, making it more important than ever for teams to efficiently identify key opinion leaders (KOLs). Fortunately, medical affairs teams now have access to AI- and machine learning-driven solutions like ZAIDYN Medical Opinion Leader Intelligence that empower effective engagement with healthcare professionals. ZAIDYN is ZS’s AI-powered, cloud-native life sciences intelligence platform. It unites data, analytics and workflows across commercial, medical and patient teams. ZS worked with the medical affairs team at one of the top large pharmaceutical companies to use ZAIDYN Medical and Opinion Leader Intelligence to help the team meet its engagement goals and objectives.

The challenge

Making sense of data to prioritize KOLs

The large pharma company’s medical affairs leadership team was looking for a data-driven technology solution to identify and prioritize KOLs based on specific medical objectives and disease area strategic priorities. They also wanted the ability to better evaluate whether their field medical team is engaging with the right KOLs so that they could make ongoing improvements. Medical affairs leadership wanted to make sure their teams had the resources they needed to excel.

The pharma company had data on KOLs from a number of sources but had no clear approach for curating and validating that data. They knew they needed help from a firm that could use both technology and human intelligence to analyze the data. A solution like ZAIDYN Medical Opinion Leader Intelligence that uses AI—paired with ZS’s industry expertise—was particularly appealing.

The solution

ZAIDYN Medical Opinion Leader Intelligence

ZS used human intelligence—with plenty of desk research—to analyze relevant KOLs and develop profiles in ZAIDYN Medical Opinion Leader Intelligence. Throughout the process, ZS and the client communicated to make sure the best possible targets were identified. Both parties agreed it was important to curate the KOLs based on specific business rules and parameters tailored to the pharma company’s needs. They hosted extensive review and discussion sessions to talk about potential KOL targets and why or why they shouldn’t be included. In these sessions, ZS shared key data cuts and its analyses with the client to explain the rationale behind its choices.

ZS worked with the client team to clarify any questions. For example, this involved reviewing secondary research with the client to confirm that the KOL classifications are appropriate. The client especially appreciated that Opinion Leader Intelligence offers a 360-degree view of the influence network by allowing medical affairs teams to see how doctors are connected with each other.

After ZS and the client agreed on a list of KOLs to incorporate into the solution, ZS configured and tailored the intelligence platform to meet the client’s needs. ZS’s Gloria Zhou said the longtime relationship between the firm and the client made this process more collaborative. She noted the client was especially pleased that the implementation process took only six weeks.

“From an analytics perspective, ZS and the client have been strategic partners for years, so there was a level of trust established that enabled us to move quickly,” Zhou said.

ZS stayed in touch with the client’s field medical professionals once they started using ZAIDYN Medical, allowing us to gather feedback and continue to tailor the platform to their needs. ZAIDYN Opinion Leader Intelligence features capabilities to gather user feedback and automatically incorporate it on an ongoing basis.

“Throughout the implementation process, the ZAIDYN team made our field medical team on the ground feel like their voices were heard and their feedback was valued,” said one senior leader at the client.

The impact

Top pharma KOL engagement

Both medical affairs leadership and field teams at the large pharma company said ZAIDYN Opinion Leader Intelligence quickly became indispensable for field planning. They reiterated the importance of being able to target KOLs on specific medical initiatives and objectives. The platform began paying dividends as soon as teams used it, as they were able to identify 300 new and previously unknown KOLs. The solution also helped them identify more than 150 rising star KOLs that the field medical team could consider for early engagement. Most significantly, ZAIDYN facilitated over 10,000 new connections within the influence network of these KOLs.

Medical affairs team members at the client commented on how ZAIDYN Medical transformed their operations:

• “This solution makes it easier for our team to move past abstract, vague conversations with KOLs and instead discuss specific opportunities and challenges.”

• “This platform is a game-changer for territory planning and prioritization.”

• “It would have taken us a significant amount of time to find these influence network insights without the help of Opinion Leader Intelligence.”

Now the pharma client has the ability to explore a deep and comprehensive influence network across a disease area’s research, clinical, academic and leadership spheres. It can also access KOL lists that evolve along with landscape shifts and strategic priority changes. To drive even higher KOL engagement, the pharma client can access last-mile engagement insights around referral patterns, channel preference, sentiment and more.

In the years to come, the client said they plan to continue to use ZAIDYN Medical and Opinion Leader Intelligence because of how seamless it is to align KOL engagement with company objectives.