You are not alone!

Today I hosted an agency-only meeting of the PM Society ’s Industry-Agency Relationships interest group with co-lead Rachel Farrow . 12 agencies were represented, some larger networks, most smaller and independent. The question – what’s life like running healthcare comms agencies at the moment?  The answer – some significant and worrying trends, but also a few green shoots. Green shoots that might be perceived as pointers for the future. 

What we learnt is that the people on the ground, industry procurement, marketing and agency teams are not only feeling the strain, perhaps like never before, but showing it in their behaviours; Ghosting because they’re afraid of breaking relationships, having to renege on purchase orders and commitments, and pitches that evaporate despite the financial commitment made on both sides. 

Worse is the direct impact on the quality of the dialogue with healthcare professionals and therefore derailing our purpose and mission:  producing positive outcomes for both patients and investors.

The industry has always relied on its very capable and deeply knowledgeable marketing and medical affairs teams and their relationships with their skilled agency communicators for disease awareness, medical education and creating an awareness of better, more efficient therapies. It is significant that Veeva, the foremost provider of detail aids, has cited that 77% of all the content currently being produced for HCPs is not being read. The electronic communication age is failing to replicate the face-to-face communication that did so much to benefit patients in past decades. 

The irony is that over the last year, we’ve seen huge progress in vaccine development, cancer treatments, obesity management, and rare diseases, as well as new treatments for conditions like Alzheimer’s. 

It is the value problem that persists. Consequently, every cost on the P&L is being examined and it is all too easy to focus on marketing and medical affairs, forgetting that this is the interface with the healthcare professional – the bit that needs to thrive – if there are to better outcomes for investors and most importantly, patients.

In our meeting, just one member of the group talked about some progressive conversations with several pharma procurement colleagues overall however, the messages were disheartening. And for us, the worst aspect was the degree of desperation that has crept into conversations between industry procurement, marketing, medical affairs and their agency counterparts, all hardworking and expert people focused on their mission: better outcomes for patients. 

So, those green shoots? So often in this world something needs to be broken before it can be reinvented. The synergy that has existed between so many capable industry and agency people has taken a few knocks and many of the individuals involved are feeling very isolated – close to breaking. However, the first point of this article is to say you’re not alone. The second point is to say all good things come to an end, but it is always followed by the next adventure and challenge.

The mission remains the same: producing positive outcomes for both patients and investors. So, we’d ask anyone experiencing the drama of the accelerating change facing the sector, anyone who is feeling isolated, to get involved and help us at the PM Society understand what the marketing team or medical affairs team, the procurement team or the agency team of the future looks like. Help us define how we all remain relevant and get back to adding value that is so very dearly needed by patient populations around the world.

Authors: Rachel Farrow and Stephen Page, Co-leads of the Industry-Agency Relationships Interest Group at the PM Society .