Introduction

In an increasingly complex healthcare landscape, medical affairs teams are evolving beyond scientific communication to become strategic partners, digital pioneers, and vital bridges between pharma, patients, and healthcare systems. Industry leaders from Bayer, Lundbeck, AstraZeneca, and Sanofi recently shared insights on how pharmaceutical companies can elevate engagement through customer-centric capabilities.

Addressing Fragmentation Across Healthcare Audiences

The panel highlighted the challenge of healthcare fragmentation, emphasizing that a one-size-fits-all approach is no longer effective. Markus Scheerer, VP CKD in Global Medical Affairs at Bayer, noted that even within primary care, different specialties require tailored approaches: "Primary care is not one setting. They have different specialties, different ideas. So tailor your content and really drive it down to a PCP audience."

Georgia Spain, Director of Oncology Digital Innovation at AstraZeneca, emphasized that similar fragmentation exists within specialties: "Even within specialties, there is a need for greater personalisation. Some oncologists work across multiple different tumor areas—how are they absorbing so much information?"

A key concern raised by Barry Daly, Head of Medical Excellence and Omnichannel UKIE at Sanofi, was the overwhelming volume of content healthcare professionals receive: "We produce what we think is really good content, but the problem is every other company is also producing high-quality personalized medical education. If HCPs get 20 sets of content before their morning coffee, it's of no use to them."

Expanding Engagement Beyond Traditional Stakeholders

The panel discussed strategies for reaching beyond top-tier key opinion leaders to community-based and underrepresented healthcare professionals. Spain shared AstraZeneca's strategic shift: "Our mission within medical affairs is that the future of oncology is beyond these academic centers and ivory towers of cancer care. We need to expand into cancer networks and increase our reach to HCPs we don't normally engage with."

To achieve this broader reach without overwhelming field teams, companies are increasingly turning to digital engagement. "We can't just do that through increasing the burden on already at-capacity MSLs," Spain added. "We need to lift work through digital. Digital is great for broader awareness and disease education, while saving high-value resources like MSLs for scientific discussion and deep knowledge transfer."

Internal Shifts for Better Cross-Functional Collaboration

The panelists agreed that successful customer-centric engagement requires significant internal mindset shifts. Barry Daly emphasized the importance of outcome-focused planning: "The biggest shift is a mindset shift—start with the end in mind. Write down what the impact of your actions is going to be, rather than just listing activities."

Søren Buur, Director and Head of Medical Affairs Operations at Lundbeck, shared how organizational restructuring can facilitate collaboration: "It's very much about what is best for the asset and not so much what is best for the individual silos. Last week, medical affairs split up so that medical strategy, communication, information, operations, and excellence moved to the part of commercial that harbors the assets and customer experience group."

Scheerer reinforced the need to break down internal barriers: "We are seen as one company from the outside world. We need to tear down the silos and think about getting all stakeholders in a win-win situation."

Patient-Centric Digital Initiatives

The panel showcased how meaningful patient input can transform digital initiatives. Buur described Lundbeck's collaboration with the Danish Knowledge Center on Headache Disorders: "We developed an app where patients over a three-month period recorded their daily headache/migraine status. What was striking was that participants joined not for a wish to better handle their migraine, but from an urge to help generate knowledge to improve treatments helping other people.’’

Patient input led to crucial design decisions—like ensuring the app had a dark mode for users experiencing migraines who couldn't tolerate bright screens. "Very trivial but very important," noted Buur. "We need as an industry to always take patient input, and we should measure if that input actually affected the patient facing material we're producing."

Scheerer cautioned against developing proprietary solutions when collaboration might be more effective: "We have a heritage of needing to own an app. We should look at what's already in the ecosystem and see if we can collaborate—that's most likely better than creating something by yourself."

Integration above Everything

When asked what single change would most improve HCP engagement, the panel unanimously pointed to greater integration—both internally across company functions and externally with patients and healthcare professionals. As Scheerer concluded: "If pharma really wants to be customer-centric, we need to talk with patients and physicians."

Key Takeaways

1) Personalize beyond segmentation: "Primary care is not one setting—they have different specialties, different ideas. Tailor your content to specific audiences." - Markus Scheerer, Bayer
2) Start with patient needs: "Start from where the patient is and what the issue for the patient is. Then we can see what the physician need for that patient is and tailor our offerings." - Barry Daly, Sanofi
3) Break down internal silos: "To the customer HCP, it doesn't matter whether it's medical or commercial approaching them —it's one company. There should be no difference." - Søren Buur, Lundbeck
4) Expand beyond traditional stakeholders: "The future of oncology is beyond academic centers. We need to expand into cancer networks and increase our reach to HCPs we don't normally engage with." - Georgia Spain, AstraZeneca
5) Co-create with patients: "Using patients to improve your digital initiatives and engagement with physicians gives you more credibility. Bring the patients in and collaborate on an eye-to-eye level." - Markus Scheerer, Bayer

Markus Scheerer, VP CKD in Global Medical Affairs, Bayer
Barry Daly, Head of Medical Excellence and Omnichannel, General Medicines, UKIE, Sanofi
Georgia Spain, Director, Oncology Digital Innovation, AstraZeneca
Søren Buur, Director, Head of Medical Affairs Operations, Global Medical Affairs, Lundbeck

In order to get you the highlights of Pharma EU faster, we are using generative AI technology to summarise the transcripts of the sessions. If you have any feedback about the summary, please contact emma.haslam@thomsonreuters.com

Discover more on this topic at Pharma 2026 (22 - 24 April, 2026 , Barcelona) - the global collaborative network for leading pharma innovators. Visit the website here.

"We want to transform drug development into patient collaboration," explained Claus Mark Nielsen, Patient Voice Engagement Lead at Novo Nordisk. "Collaboration is key with patients and patient organizations. We really want to ensure that we have an operating model where we can enhance innovation and collaborate with patients in all stages of the development process, the end users, to ensure that we develop a drug that is actually going to be used."

The company's approach involves implementing patient voice in strategic and operational documents and decision processes, ensuring that patient perspectives are anchored, implemented, and documented in every development project.

Patient Voice Strategy in Action

Nielsen shared a case study on amyloidosis cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM), a rare heart disease with a life expectancy of three to five years after diagnosis. The team created a patient voice strategy that involved stakeholders from the earliest development phases through to later stages.

The process began with foundational patient insights gathered through ethnographic research, where social scientists spent time with patients in their homes to understand their lived experiences. This approach revealed a significant gap between the company's understanding and patients' actual experiences.

"We quite quickly learned there's a gap between our understanding and the patient's understanding about living with this disease," Nielsen noted.

This research has already impacted the clinical development program, influencing site selection, protocol design, recruitment materials, and considerations for drug administration.

Centralizing Patient Insights Through Digital Innovation

A key innovation in Novo Nordisk's approach is the Patient Voice Hub, a centralized digital platform that stores and organizes qualitative patient data and insights.

Agnete Bjerregaard Nielsen, Patient Insights and Intelligence Lead, explained: "The purpose of the Patient Voice Hub is going beyond just having the patient insights there, but actually having this place where we can ensure the data integrity and traceability of this qualitative patient data."

The Hub addresses several business challenges, including:

• Preventing duplication of patient engagement activities
• Providing a secure platform for storing and sharing patient data and insights
• Creating traceability for regulatory submissions
• Enabling feedback to patients about how their input influenced decisions

The development of this platform required a holistic approach that addressed data privacy, compliance, business processes, and data governance to ensure data integrity.

"Before going to the fancy stuff and adding AI or other tools, we need to have the foundation in place first," Bjerregaard Nielsen emphasized. "If it's just data that's out there and not really well handled, how can we know that we can trust it and put it into our regulatory submissions?"

Wide-Ranging Applications

The patient insights gathered through this framework inform multiple aspects of drug development and commercialization, including:

• Clinical trial design and feasibility
• Protocol development
• Recruitment and retention strategies
• Drug administration approaches
• Evidence generation for payers
• Launch materials and scientific communications

"There are many, many roles that could benefit from patient insights," said  Bjerregaard Nielsen. "Imagine if you could in your role use patient insights to inform your specific tasks."

By integrating patient perspectives into core documents like target product profiles and product development plans, Novo Nordisk aims to ensure that patient needs are considered at every stage of development.

Five Key Takeaways:

1) Strategic integration of patient voice: "We want to include patient voice in strategic and operational documents and decision processes," ensuring patient perspectives are embedded throughout development.
2) Ethnographic research reveals critical insights: Sending social scientists to spend time with patients in their homes uncovers gaps between company perceptions and patient realities.
3) Centralized data management is essential: "We need to have this underpinning data foundation that can generate and disseminate our insights," with proper governance and privacy controls.
4) Patient insights inform multiple functions: From clinical trial design to marketing materials, diverse roles across the organization can leverage patient perspectives.
5) Closing the feedback loop with patients: The system enables Novo Nordis to tell patients, "Thank you for your contribution. Your knowledge actually resulted in X, Y, Z," demonstrating the impact of their involvement.

By systematically incorporating patient voices throughout the drug development process and creating a robust digital infrastructure to manage this data, Novo Nordisk is working to ensure that their products truly meet patient needs and improve health outcomes.

In order to get you the highlights of Pharma EU faster, we are using generative AI technology to summarise the transcripts of the sessions. If you have any feedback about the summary, please contact emma.haslam@thomsonreuters.com

Discover more on this topic at Pharma 2026 (22 - 24 April, 2026 , Barcelona) - the global collaborative network for leading pharma innovators. Visit the website here.  

 "It's all about people. That's our biggest barrier to success and our key to success," Fenoglio emphasized. "You have to surround the entire program with culture and capability to change mindsets and behaviors."

Sustainable Implementation Strategies

As organizations look to embed AI sustainability in their strategy, panelists offered clear guidance: "Start now. If you haven't started now, you're already behind," urged Fenoglio. "As leaders, we need to role model the behavior and encourage experimentation and innovation in our teams, create psychological safety, make sure teams can experiment in a safe way to minimize risk."

Ferraro emphasized the importance of measurable outcomes: "You need to be really thoughtful about the challenges you're taking on and ultimately tie it back to business value first. Then make these things measurable."

DeYoung stressed the foundational importance of data infrastructure: "AI requires modern interoperable, real-time, trusted data to be able to move from isolated insights to enterprise value. We need to move from custodians of data to connectors of data so data sets can flow across functions and departments."

Key takeaways:

·      Scale beyond pilots: Most GenAI strategies lack cross-unit integration and transformative impact.

·      Focus on business problems: Target specific challenges where AI delivers measurable value.

·      Prepare for agentic AI: It will reduce operational friction, enhancing agility and personalization.

·      Fix data foundations: Modern, interoperable data systems are essential for enterprise-wide AI value.

·      Build human capabilities: Surround technology with culture that changes mindsets and behaviours.

In order to get you the highlights of Pharma EU faster, we are using generative AI technology to summarise the transcripts of the sessions. If you have any feedback about the summary and the post-event report, please contact lucy.fisher@thomsonreuters.com. 

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