Healthy Skepticism Library item: 13282

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Silverman E.
Has The Medical Affairs Department Left Marketing?
Pharmalot 2008 Mar 24
http://www.pharmalot.com/2008/03/has-the-medical-affairs-department-left-marketing/

Full text:

A recent survey indicates that pharma’s medical affairs departments aren’t reporting to marketing as much as in the past, most likely due to compliance concerns. Back in 2002, 43 percent of the department were under the marketing roof, but this dropped to 7 percent this year, according to the Cutting Edge research firm, which queried 14 drugmakers, including Amgen, Glaxo, Bayer, Biogen Idec and Novartis.

Medical affairs, by the way, was defined as including these functions: thought leader development, MSL programs, medical publications, medical education, medical information, investigator-initiated, medical grants, advisory boards and advocacy, pharmacovigilance, patient assistance, Phase IV research, or clinical trials. Of course, some will argue these functions continue to serve marketing purposes only, such as medical science liaisons and patient assistance programs, and that organizational charts are merely window dressing.

The graph does leave one question unanswered – 43 percent of drugmakers shifted medical affairs to some undefined ‘other’ category, up from 22 percent. Unfortunately, Amanda Zuniga, Cutting Edge’s research analyst, tells us the firm didn’t learn the definition for the survey question that pertains to the graphic. “When we interviewed some of the participants they disclosed this ‘other’ as being a single medical platform,” she writes. “Some organizations have separate R&D branches and medical branches. Now, I can not say that this is true for the entire 43 percentof companies, but that is the case for some of the respondents.”