Hey guys. Welcome to the podcast. My guests today are Petrina Pellet and Richard Swank, both from MSL growth. And we take a trip around the MSL insights cycle. So great conversation. I know you guys are gonna love it. And don't forget it's time to register for mass west fierce life science. Medical affairs strategic summit west is happening September 25th 26th in sunny San Diego, California. This is an amazing medical affairs event. It's great for networking content.
And this year you can actually attend for free. So to get more details, visit my LinkedIn because I'm putting postings out regularly or Google mass west 20, 24, and check out the registration information and all of the details. And I look forward to seeing you in San Diego. Welcome to MSL talk with Tom Caravella, a podcast specifically designed for MSLs and all things field medical. Hey guys, welcome to the podcast. How are you? Thank you. Thanks for having us. Great to see you.
We so for those listening, I think you guys probably all know that Katrina has been on this podcast many times before. She's my partner in crime. We do a lot of stuff together with MSL Mastery, and there's just she she has the MSL strategy hacks. I've been on that. And we're looping rich Richard, like, we've been trying to get him in, and it took a little while. I'm kinda skate I'm I'm kinda cagey that way. You know? Guy's tough to get, man. Yeah. In demand. Really, dude. So, we got them, guys.
We got them, and we're gonna talk about insights. As a matter of fact, we're gonna talk about a trip around the MSL Insights cycle, whatever that means. Yeah. We're gonna figure that out. So before we do that, you guys, Katrina, why don't you do a quick intro, and then, Richard, why don't you do an intro? Yeah. Thank you so much for having me again, Tom. Although, I think the last time I was on was, like, in the sixties. Yeah. Mhmm. So I think people have probably missed me. In the sixties.
Yeah. Not like 19 sixties. You mean I was I was born in the sixties, so I'm not sure where you were going with that. But I just realized episode 60. Let me let me clarify. Episode 60. I was also episode number 10. I looked that up the other day. Wow. So really way back in the day. Top 10. You made the top 10. Yeah. Well, thank you so much again for having me. My name is Katrina Pellet.
I do a lot of work with MSL Soft Skills, and I have a number of different brands where I help provide resources and training and online programs for MSLs to improve their capabilities and skills. And currently, I am partnering with Rich on our company called MSL Growth, and we have a really awesome insights course to help MSLs take ownership of their impact.
We're really excited to share with you guys a lot of the pro tips that we have and why it's so important to understand the end to end insight cycle. And I think Katrina captured that very well. So we're partnering on MSL growth and, really having fun helping MSLs upskill and own the impact that they're bringing through the insights that they are both discovering and communicating internally. So it's been a lot of fun.
And, you know, it looks like it's keeping us busy, especially for the next few months. Rich, do you wanna tell that story right now where I'm really mean and make you follow deadlines all the time and stuff? Like, I'm the organized one, and Rich is not so organized at each end. I'm retired. So, you know, I'm not I am I'm not a w two, you know, slave. I'm just I get to decide how I spend my time. And, that being said, Katrina is like, man, she's got a not a whip, but, like, what are those?
A taser? She's got a taser when she's used to video taping stuff. This story is getting, like, more elaborate. No. It's I'm not gonna lie. I'm a little afraid of Katrina myself. I'm just saying. Right. So Thanks, Tom. I I thought you'd understand. Yeah. So we're in agreement on that. So, guys, we're gonna transition into a very important topic. MSL Insights is really important. And we've talked about it before, but we're gonna put a little bit of a different spin on it.
But before we get into that, let's start with, like, what's, like, some of the what's the most common mistake MSLs make when it comes to insights? I'll start. Katrina can, correct me. Entering information that's not relevant, not salient to the strategy, just kind of random comments that, sometimes don't feel like they are gonna gain traction because probably they won't. So, you know, it's that information that's being entered, just because they wanna check a box.
It doesn't understand or communicate the context. It doesn't communicate why the individual, the opinion leader, or HCP is thinking that way, and it doesn't importantly identify what the potential implications are. What are the potential actions of, you know, taking action on that information, that insight? That's definitely a huge one that we see. I would add to this understanding the entire end to end insight cycle.
So what we often see MSLs do is get really bogged down and heads down in the gathering stage, which makes a lot of sense because that's where MSLs are contributing the most. But if you want your insights to go across the finish line and inform strategy, create better patient outcomes, understanding each stage of the insight cycle is key. A lot of MSLs will think, oh, I don't I don't impact this stage, and that's not true.
There's a lot of things that can be done by individual contributor MSLs at each stage of the insight cycle. Got it. Let me ask you this, though. Are in your experience, our MSLs, our MSLs trained properly on what to input versus what they shouldn't input and how are they inputting it? Is it like a a dropdown select menu? Is it free text?
Cause there's a lot of people listening to this that don't really know about MSL insights, like aspiring MSLs or newer MSLs, or they just don't know how to input that. So rich talk about. Yeah. Thanks, Tom. Great question. The second half of your question, the answer is it's all over the board. Okay. Some teams are entering stuff in Excel, some are entering it in a CRM, and we all know there's a big CRM out there that most companies pay for.
And then some companies are doing that in a pretext only. Some are permutations of that where you have preapproved drop downs that capture buckets of topic. And to answer the first part of your question, is there training? No. There usually isn't. And that's where our services get, you know, asked for quite a bit. And the training really is lacking in terms of not only not the process part.
That's usually, you know, you're gonna have somebody running the system that says, hey, this is the rules you're gonna follow. This is what you have to do. But it's the quality oversight and then the subsequent analysis of the insights overall that's blacking. So the cycle that Katrina mentioned earlier is really important there because there is an analysis phase.
And for that, you really need to have people in charge of that insights, process to really scroll through and distill and identify the salient information, sometimes by tagging, you know, or using a drop down approach. But, you know, in the end, we see things all over the board. Some relatively big companies have recently transitioned from, offline tracking things like Excel documents, to CRM systems.
And and even then, there's a a wide variety of software that can float on top and help you with identification and tagging. Then there's the whole flavor of getting AI involved, you know, on top of that as well. And I'll go one step back from that. So, Tom, thanks for reminding us that, you know, not everybody are insights experts that are listening to this. Insights are a result of interactions between MSLs and KOLs or HCPs in the field.
The idea is that MSLs will uncover valuable information that can help the company inform strategy. And what is an insight and what isn't an insight is dependent on a lot of different things, like your product life cycle, your company goals, and your strategy. And to echo what Rich said, the process for entering these is gonna look different at every company.
And so you the MSLs that are listening to this know what their process looks like, and it's everything that Rich mentioned from Excel sheets, Smartsheet, CRMs to stand stand alone tools. And I would just add oh, sorry. Go ahead. Is competitive intelligence an insight, or is it a separate thing? That's a really good question. And as actually, and I would love to know what Rich thinks about this because we haven't debate abated this.
When I'm talking to my friends outside of pharma and outside of medical affairs, I never call it an insight. Right? I don't talk about being an insights expert because they don't get that. I actually call it competitive intelligence. So saying, oh, I help people do competitive intelligence and the soft skills around gathering competitive intelligence intelligence. So I would that was a side story, but back to your original question, Absolutely, competitive intelligence is included in that.
So you want to know what HCPs think of the therapeutic area, all of the different treatments that are out there, and what options are available to patients. So that immediately means understanding everything in the pipeline, what the doctors and HCPs think about that, and then the molecules on the, on the market already and what people think about those as well. And, Rich, what would you add? Yeah. It's going to depend on the life cycle management in the therapeutic area too.
So in the rare disease space, there may be no competitor. You know, if it's a novel gene therapy for a rare disease, then your main competitor is the uneducated understanding of how the gene therapy vector is delivered and, you know, and all that jazz. So, on the other hand, what if you're a product that's been on the market for 22 years and there's 10 active competitors?
That can happen too, in which case there's a lot of CI about other companies and the MSLs need to be experts across the board in that therapeutic space. They can't just put blinders on and stick to the product that they're representing that rather they have to be a true thought partner for the opinion leaders and HCPs, to talk about, hey, what what's the newest data in the space? What was just presented at Scientific Congress and for example.
And so, yeah, the answer is for me, absolutely, competitive intelligence is part of the insights process, but it depends on the life cycle management and, and, you know, companies are going to have different focus areas for that too, depending on the regulatory and the compliance environment that they're operating in and in the region that they're into. So let's get back to the insights cycle.
And, I have to laugh because if you guys are watching this on YouTube, you'll see like behind Katrina's head on her wall, she has like a bicycle. So it's like, I see the word cycle, and I'm, like, looking at the cycle, like Getting confused. Yeah. I'm getting a little confused. I'm not talking about bicycle. I am talking about the insight cycle. So what can you describe the stages of the MSL Insight cycle? Maybe, Rich, I'll go and then let you jump in. Absolutely.
So when we say insight cycle, we're meaning the process it takes to define what is relevant to the company and help MSLs prioritize what to listen for to analyzing that information, collating it, combining it with other data sources, and then sharing it internally to the relevant stakeholders. Rich and I talk about this with 4 main stages, but your company may have typically more stages than that.
And so it's really this process of how do we take this information, share it to the relevant stakeholders, and then take action on it. And now I wanna hear Rich's take on that. Well, that's a really nice overview. And but importantly, it all starts with strategy. And the strategy tells you what you're going to focus on and what you're not gonna focus on. So the strategy for your medical affairs space really is your guide in helping MSLs determine what they're looking for.
What are the discussion points that are happening in field medical that need to be brought back to the company and help inform, decisions that need to be made or directions that need to be pursued? And so it starts with a strategy. And then and that then, you know, there's there's 3 other components of the cycle that we can get into. But I mean, in the end, the information and insights brought back help inform a subsequent round of the next cycle. The insight cycle, not the buy cycle. Got it.
Yeah. I'm following up. For clarifying, Rich. Yeah. And one little add on that, and Rich and I will share more tips like this later. One of the biggest gaps we see when it comes to delivering decision grade insights is this lack of connection to strategy. This stage is so important for, 1, leadership to define and clearly communicate to their MSLs, and, 2, for MSLs to learn, grasp, and use to prioritize their conversations and the KOLs and HCPs that they meet.
So we hear this complaint a lot of, from senior leaders that say, what are we supposed to do with this? And if you are getting that complaint about your insights, it typically means that they're not relevant to the strategy or the business objectives. Gotcha. Alright. So little bit to unpack here because as we're talking about this medical strategy piece, I think this is where people need more details.
So when it comes to, like, what should MSLs be thinking when it comes to a specific stage of the medical strategy? Do you mean, how how should they internalize this, or how should they try to take action on it or learn it? Is that kind of what you're getting at? Yeah. Like, when we so we are stages of the MSL Insights cycle. There's a strategy. So how do they know what they need to be thinking in each stage of the cycle? Oh, got it. Got it.
This is where we really advocate for having a good understanding of what each stage looks like at your company. As Rich alluded to earlier, the way insights are captured is different at every company, and the way that insights are generated is different at every company. So what we tend to do is think try to teach people to think a little bit higher level on what do you need to know at this stage and how it applies at your particular company. And, Rich, what would you add on to that?
Yeah. That that's a great question, Tom, and I think maybe let's simplify it by almost an example. So let's say you're at a company that's about ready to get approval from the FDA on their first ever product. So what is the strategy for medical affairs at that point? I would lay money on the line that it's probably disease state education as a prelude to mechanism of action discussions.
And the strategy is let's make sure our top opinion leaders and most important customers for this company are educated on our mechanism and understand, the basics of, you know, understand not only the disease state, which I'm sure they probably already do, but understand the mechanism of how the drug works and what its targeted population was in the studies and all that jazz. So the the strategy on education is very easy to translate.
Okay. The MSL, I'm gonna go out and make sure I'm gonna probe and investigate and see, do they really understand how this is working? What do I not understand about how they're thinking, how the opinion leader is thinking about this potential product? And that information then is used to, gather insights from, let's say, a collection of maybe 50 interactions that the MSL has with all of those customers.
Then that's then analyzed and the plum information from that is pulled out and communicated internally. It's communicated and shared across functions so that we're we're not in medical affairs just operating in a silo. And the output of that is, okay. Well, what else do we need to know? Well, that helps inform the subsequent set of strategies, which is maybe gonna go deeper. How is this gonna be reimbursed? How do we need to educate in the payer environment?
And, you know, what what are we thinking about how this is gonna roll out? And how do we how do you transition this into clinical practice, eventually when you do get approved? And that then goes you go into another cycle where you gather, you analyze, you communicate, and help inform the subsequent strategy. So, and other different companies call it different things, but it all starts to your point, Tom, with the strategy, and it helps provide the focus Mhmm.
Right, on on what what's needed for the company. Well, I keep hearing. So I'm tuning into this word gathering, and I know that that the gathering stage is a really important part of this whole insights life cycle process. So what would you say is most important and what mistakes are MSLs making when it comes to the gathering stage? I know Rich wants to take this one. Oh, yeah. She makes fun of me for this all the time because insights are not plucked from a tree like a ripe orange. Right?
Is that what you are all the time, like every call. I guess. Yeah. I'm unpredictable. I think that's what that means. But yeah. And thank you, Tom. It really means that they're not just harvested, vacuumed up off the carpet or plucked from a fruit tree. Insights have to be distilled. You have to you have to combine disparate sometimes disparate sets of data to uncover the real driver behind a bit of information. So it's not just an isolated piece of data.
It's usually context and information that's pulled together from a couple of sources. Maybe triangulated might be a word that could be used in order to posit, you know, this is what we believe we are seeing from this set of interactions. This is what the opinion leader is thinking, and this is why, and this is why it might be relevant to the company. So it sounds like an insight of something that, oh, yeah. I'll take 10 of them. Amazon Prime Day, I'll and I'll get 3 free ones.
That's not it at all. It's a it's a intricate process that really has to be calibrated to the company and to the therapeutic area. So, anyway, I'll stop but turn it over to Katrina. That's not what I thought he was gonna say. Mhmm. Crazy me. So, on the gathering stage of the insight cycle, as we alluded to before, this is where MSL spend most of their time, and this is where they're meeting with HCPs or KOLs to discuss scientific data, to undergo scientific exchange.
And during that process, they are expected to uncover information about how the doctor or HCP is thinking and why, specifically around things like how they analyze data, what type of data points are they interested in. If they're treating patients, how do they make patient treatment decisions, which guidelines do they follow and why.
So that's MSLs are doing that or not doing, but MSLs are in the field engaging with their stakeholders trying to understand more about what the doctors are thinking. And I thought what Rich was gonna do in terms of the big mistake that we see a lot of MSLs make during this stage is not including the relevant context and the implications of the information that they're coming back. It feels like a lot of MSLs think that or forget that other people are not in the meetings with them.
And when they're reporting the insight, they're not including all the relevant context and why it's important for the company to know this. And so, for example, we see insights a lot that say something like HCP is really excited about the phase 3 data. This is the start of a really good piece of information, but it doesn't include the context around it and why this is important for the company. Rich, what would you add to this?
You know, I I think there's many other examples that in a similar vein that don't, extrapolate or flesh out the thinking, you know, and just, that's so important. And, if someone isn't in the meeting with you to take in the context and track the discussion, then that historical context is gone. So, this is why some companies have, you know, ride alongs with field medical and then sales too, for that matter. They'll have somebody ride along to track the conversation.
You know, it's got its own kind of issues with having a 3rd wheel there, you know, during a conversation. But the it's true that the need to track the conversation and understand the context is so important. And that's why you see applications like that of having someone else present even to, you know, to evaluate effectiveness of field discussions. Cool. All right. So let's fast forward a little bit. Let's talk about the analysis phase or stage. So what should MSLs be concerned with?
What's most important in this stage? One of the first is to not lose track of the important insights that have been delivered, and to hear back, what happened to the insights I delivered? That there's a famous black hole feeling in the medical affairs space where information typically just goes into this black hole and MSLs don't hear back.
So MSLs really need to work the system, understand the equivalent of the cycle at their company, and really get to know people who are making the decisions and making sure that they're ensuring they're going to hear back on decisions made or actions taken based on that information. And I think, also the area of concern here is not only hearing back, but having ownership, empowering the MSL who brought that information to use the information for subsequent follow ups too.
And so it it becomes a relationship builder, if you will. I would add to this to for MSLs listening or aspiring MSLs, when it comes to the analysis stage of the insight cycle to try to put yourself in the person's shoes that's analyzing these insights. So remember that it's a process. It's a cycle that Rich described. The The when you gather this piece of information in the field from an HCP interaction, this is analyzed to create the final decision grade insight.
So a lot of MSLs will think, oh, I gathered my insights, and now they've magically become decision grade. It's really important for them to understand this analysis process and what's happening at their particular company because how they enter the information can impact how easy or hard it is to analyze that data. Sometimes, if MSLs enter something in a way that doesn't rhyme with the analysis process, it can get missed.
And I think also one thing that Rich was alluding to as well is if you don't enter in a timely fashion, it's not going to make it in that analysis cycle and be included. So and this was what I was alluding to a little bit on the gathering stage. Remember that these folks that are analyzing the insights were not in the meeting with you, and they, depending on the therapeutic area, might have hundreds of insights to review and make sense of.
So that's why it's so important to put yourself in their shoes and try to understand what it's like to actually analyze this insight to create something that's decision grade that the informed strategy and that leadership can use. Got you. There's one thing I'd like to add, Tom, to what Katrina just said, and that's the audience that the MSL is writing for. The MSL is not writing for their own notes to be placed in some archived document to go back and check. Oh, yeah.
What did I talk about with doctor Smith? That's not the goal of the insights. The insights the the audience you're writing for is up the chain. You're you're writing for medical leadership, the rest of field medical leadership as well. And that point gets lost all the time. It just the the if the training and expectations aren't managed upfront, then you're gonna get the wrong tone and the wrong audience that's really being written for. So we talked about the gathering stage.
We talked about the analysis stage. We talked about a lot of things. What stage are we missing? Sharing stage. Sharing stage. Tell us about the sharing stage. Some people will call it different names at their company. It might be reporting or communicating stage. So this is kind of the last stage where the MSLs have gathered the information. It's been analyzed into something that's meaningful for the company and that they can ideally make some kind of decision based on.
Now that you have this information, it has to be shared with the appropriate stakeholders so they can take action. And this looks wildly different across different companies. A really effective thing that we've seen companies do to share the insights is having monthly, quarterly meetings with cross functional stakeholders to share and discuss the insights and what they mean.
And there's a lot of other mechanisms out there, but at the end of the day, to take your insights across the finish line and make sure you're having an impact and creating those better patient outcomes, the decision grade insights need to be shared with the appropriate people so that they could take action on it. Rich, what would you add?
The only thing I'd add is it's also an opportune time to ask those cross functional partners what are they looking for in the coming 3 to 6 months or coming, you know, 1 to 3 months or whatever the time frame may be? What a wonderful opportunity to help assimilate all of the the the stakeholders in one room and ask, what are you concerned about? What do you need to know more about? And what levels of HCPs or opinion leaders do you need that information from?
And a lot of teams that do it well do that regularly. And and the cross functional partners really find that a a way to raise their bar as well. I would add one thing as well from the MSL perspective and maybe some of the folks that are listening, you might be thinking, okay. Well, I'm not involved in that. Right? So the MSL is typically, depending on the company, are not the ones that are sharing with the cross functional stakeholders, although sometimes this does happen.
But what Rich and I always like to say is that understanding your audience is key to delivering really good raw insights. So a really good example of this, some of the insights customers that I used to work with, we had one CMO that he wanted to read every single raw insight. So when we created reports, we included a lot of the raw things that HCPs were saying. On the flip side, at another company, the CEO or CMO really liked data. He wanted to see charged.
So then we presented the reports and analyzed them in a different way. So the point being, the individual MSL might not be the one that is sharing with the cross functional stakeholders, but there's a lot of value in understanding who they are, and that can drive what the MSLs are doing on the ground as they're interacting with their customers. Got you. Alright. So final question. Do you have any last minute insights about insights that you wanna share? Rich?
I think for me, a lot of people think they need something. They need something about insights, but they're not exactly quite sure. What is it what is it that I need about insights? And so I I think there's just like this discussion today, you know, helping others who may not understand the medical affairs space even about what a medical insight is, there there are a lot of people who are interested in the topic of insights, but they're not quite sure what they want precisely.
When you get down to brass tacks, that's, you know, I think when you begin to solve that problem. But, it's interesting. It's it's almost a nebulous topic that gets discussed at almost too high of an altitude. It's an interesting conundrum. I'm gonna steal one of Rich's as my final takeaway. Rich and I have this really great video on a myth about insights, and the myth is that it's this big no Nobel laureate groundbreaking thing.
So usually when medical affairs folks are discussing insights and their impact, people are thinking on this level. Like, oh, it's a new indication, a huge expansion, something like that. And, of course, that does happen, and that's amazing when it does, but that's not the majority of where insights are having an impact. It's oftentimes these little things that are over time, cumulatively building up to create a really big impact on strategy.
So an example of that is an insight can be a little thing, like, we need to clarify this mechanism of action diagram on our slide deck, and this helps other MSLs educate their HCPs on it. It can be updating a reference on a slide deck. So I invite all the folks on the line to, yes, think really big about your insights, but also recognize how these small things add up to really big progress and impact over time. Awesome. That's a great way to close this out. You guys are amazing as always.
Thank you for coming on. And for those of you guys listening, if you want more of this, you can find Katrina all over LinkedIn. She has her medical affairs strategy hacks. He's killing it with that. She's got the MSL mastery stuff. And, and they both have something called MSL growth, which, really is exactly what we're talking about. That's an MSL insights course, and it's blowing up. People love it. If it's all things insights. So check that out. Thank you guys for joining us.
If you got value in this, please share it with others. There's a reason why this is the fastest growing podcast in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. It's because of you guys. Appreciate you all. We'll see you next time. Thanks, guys. Thank you, Tom. Thanks, Tom. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much for listening to the show. And if you enjoyed it, please subscribe so that you don't miss an episode in future and feel free to leave a rating or a review or a comment.
Thanks again, and we look forward to seeing you soon.