From COVID-19 to cancer: How can medical education cut through the noise surrounding mRNA technology?

In 2021, Synergy was proud to have helped launch one of the first-ever mRNA vaccines, contributing in a small way to the estimated ~20 million lives saved globally by vaccination during that year of the COVID-19 pandemic.[1]

mRNA technology, along with its lexicon and mechanism of action, was thrust into the healthcare mainstream, during the time of a unique educational environment for the pharma industry. This article looks at lessons learned, and how we can optimise communication of this transformative technology for future generations of mRNA therapeutics.

The COVID-19 pandemic has catapulted mRNA to the forefront of the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries, and into public awareness. From a promising but under-the-radar developmental technology, mRNA powered the unprecedented speed, scalability, and clinical profile of the COVID-19 vaccine response, bringing a huge boost of development funding to the field and increasing awareness amongst healthcare professionals previously unfamiliar with such platforms.[2,3] As of August 2022, Informa Trialtrove® lists 936 clinical trials planned or underway across 282 mRNA products, with many more in earlier stages of development.[4]

The promise of translating almost any protein that can be encoded, in vivo within a patient's own body, has a myriad possible uses (Figure 1): from the prophylactic vaccines that have already changed the world, to gene editing, protein-replacement therapies, and personalised oncology therapeutics that have the potential to revolutionise their respective areas of healthcare.[5-7]

Figure 1: Uses of mRNA technology under investigation[4-9]

Meanwhile, future developments in the fields of circular RNA, self-amplifying and trans-amplifying mRNAs, and novel delivery platforms—including lipid- and polymer-based approaches—seek to optimize the immunogenicity, targeting, expression and decay rates of mRNA for different uses.[7-10]

COVID-19 launches: Communication in a time of commotion

Despite the highly scientific nature and transformative potential of mRNA technology, its application to COVID-19 vaccines led to some unique communication challenges. The need for public health awareness and the voracious appetite of the mainstream media resulted in an information overload, to which even healthcare professionals (HCPs) were not immune.

Indeed, during the peri-launch period, we uncovered what we had already suspected: that HCPs were seeking up-to-the-minute, easy-to-digest information from sources and channels not previously considered a first port-of-call for healthcare information. Lay news media such as The New York Times became a leading source of information for HCPs regarding the pandemic. Press releases and preprints filled a gap opened by lightspeed communication that traditional, peer-reviewed scientific publishing simply was not set up for,[11] and these in turn were picked up as stories by press outlets eager for new information but less concerned with scale or context. Clinicians with digital followings found their voices amplified to that of national or global opinion leaders, as the academic or congress hall auditorium was replaced by the Twittersphere. Data were often being disclosed faster than the typical timeline that comprehension required.

In this new information ecosystem, several myths and misunderstandings surrounding core concepts of mRNA technology came to light (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Common misunderstandings of HCPs regarding mRNA technology[7-9,12-14]

A key challenge of discussing mRNA therapeutics is that the audience is not a single specialty of HCPs or a group of patients with one disease type—these products are underpinned by complex science with different implications across disciplines. Understanding core beliefs or concerns that drive behaviours amongst certain stakeholders is vital to effective communication. For example, several infectious disease physicians asked if we could be certain that mRNA could not be reverse-transcribed and integrated into a recipient’s DNA. It was only through further consultation that we discovered their underlying fear was what might happen in the presence of reverse transcriptase in their HIV-positive patients.

In addition, due to the speed of progressing from a relatively quiet area of research and development managed by small Biotech, mRNA as a platform had not benefitted from the months and years of careful pre-launch planning and narrative crafting that precedes most new drug entries to the market. The concern in such a scenario is that messaging can become reactive, and a simplistic message intended to allay HCPs’ concerns (such as ‘mRNA does not enter the nucleus and does not integrate with cellular DNA’) may suffer from a lack of nuance[12] and could create unintended downstream consequences for a company’s interests in mRNA-mediated gene editing and portfolio platforms, such as DNA-based technologies.

Finally, in the maelstrom of pandemic-related information, there is a need for authoritative, narrative-based medical education from companies developing mRNA therapies. Information exchange, especially with third-party content developers, often focuses on sharing data as it becomes available, rather than crafting a longer-term narrative considerate of future development, strategy, and portfolio ambitions. Companies have a responsibility to provide fair and balanced information informed by professional insight, as well as a strategic imperative to articulate and communicate their own story.

Amplifying the signal in the noise: Reimagining Medical Communications

Strategic and innovative Medical Communications can spark emotion and shift beliefs by telling persuasive scientific stories from the underlying evidence. In an era of increasingly complex science and information overload, an integrated Medical Communications approach represents a unique, and evolving, opportunity to cut through the noise and to elevate medical excellence in the field of mRNA medicines.

Recommendations for Medical Communications of mRNA Therapeutics

1. Develop a single proprietary mRNA scientific narrative. Identifying the core story you want to tell about mRNA technology is a difficult but vital step that deserves appropriate time and thought for proper development. Ideally, this should be separate from, but work synergistically with, the narrative supporting an individual product, while being mindful of other mRNA products and pipeline technologies in development. It should bring together a multi-stakeholder team to elaborate upon key information regarding the mRNA platform. This will ensure consistency of messaging across channels regardless of who is telling the story, from market-shaping to product launch to supporting the marketing of multiple products in a portfolio.
2. Appoint a specialist Medical Communications partner. Partnership is crucial to optimal education. A Medical Communications partner should be capable of driving both the planning and execution of a strategic approach to communication and optimising message development while remaining true to the scientific data. This partner should understand your wider company interests and pipeline, and be able to differentiate your mRNA technology without damaging perceptions of your other platforms or poisoning the well for future innovations. An agency partner, as opposed to a ‘vendor’, will regularly bring you new insights and fresh inspiration, and will collaborate with you to help develop your own ideas and bring them to reality.
3. Engage internal stakeholders to create a cross-functional tactical plan. Siloed teams are the antithesis of good communication. With technology such as mRNA, which touches so many different audiences each with their own pre-existing beliefs and misconceptions, siloed communication can be actively harmful to other teams’ objectives. While Medical Affairs, Clinical Development, Marketing, Value/Health Economics and other internal stakeholders will have their own goals and responsibilities, an integrated plan ensures that your HCP audiences are hearing an accurate, consistent message regarding your technology and products at the right time via the most effective channels. Incorporating key data milestones, congresses and competitor activities, as well as product-specific and above-brand communications will allow your information to propagate effectively amongst your audiences.
4. Map external experts across multiple domains. Gone are the days when the effectiveness of a key opinion leader (KOL) could be measured by their academic success alone. The pandemic accelerated a digital transformation in the expert ecosystem, and the range of uses of mRNA technology necessitates a wide network of opinion leaders across different disease areas. Expertise in their fields, familiarity with the technological platform, connectivity within their peer networks, an active digital footprint, high level of advocacy, and speaking ability/experience are all domains that affect experts’ influence levels. A top-down record of key experts identified along these domains, including their needs and internal plans to best utilise and develop these KOLs, will facilitate effective peer-to-peer communications.
5. Educate on the full spectrum from basic biology to cutting-edge research. A ‘high-science’ approach is the gold standard in Medical Communications, but experience tells us that we cannot always assume full recollection of the core concepts of transcription and translation, even amongst HCPs. An end-to-end educational approach taking the audience from the details of endocytosis and nuclear transport, through to the different chemical modifications of mRNA and the targeting of delivery mechanisms to different cell types, is necessary for an HCP audience to fully understand the nature of these products. Such an approach should empower HCPs to identify myths and misinformation for themselves, and enable mRNA to continue breaking new ground.

Summary: Advancing communication, commensurate with the science

The scientific advances making mRNA technology possible have taken 60 years since the discovery of the molecule,[15] leading to the first mRNA-based drugs in the form of COVID-19 vaccines in 2021. We at Synergy have been grateful to contribute to the communications underpinning these products, and we are excited to bring our experience of the transformed educational landscape to the next generation of mRNA therapeutics. 

By Simon Addison, Group Scientific Director, Synergy

References:

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