Innovative Medical Education to Drive Reach, Awareness, Appropriate Diagnosis, and Better Outcomes​

Industries Profiled:
Biopharmaceutical; Pharmaceutical; Manufacturing; Biotech; Consumer Products; Diagnostic; Medical Device; Health Care; Clinical Research; Laboratories


Companies Profiled:
Alkermes; Alnylam Pharmaceuticals; AstraZeneca; Bayer; bioMérieux; Boehringer Ingelheim; Daiichi Sankyo; Eurofarma; Exact Sciences; GlaxoSmithKline; ImmunityBio; Incyte; Ipsen; Merck; Novo Nordisk; Orion Pharma; Rigel Pharmaceuticals; Sanofi; Santen; Santhera; Seres Therapeutics; Servier; Sobi; Summit Therapeutics; Takeda Pharmaceuticals; Terns Pharmaceuticals; Travere Therapeutics; Vantive; Zimmer Biomet

Study Snapshot

Best Practices, LLC engaged 36 Medical Affairs leaders from 29 biopharma companies via a quantitative survey and conducted deep‑dive interviews with eight participants to capture real‑world examples, success factors, and operational enablers. The analysis spans stakeholder priorities, channel effectiveness, content performance, budget allocation, MSL support, social media insights, payer education, KPIs, and use of analytics & AI.

Key topics covered in this report include:

• Innovation Approaches in Medical Education
• High-Impact Stakeholder Engagement Models
• Channels, Content, and Formats That Perform
• KPIs, ROI, and Measurement Maturity
• Investment Trends and Resource Allocation
• MSLs’ Expanding Strategic Role in Education
• Analytics- and AI-Enabled Personalization
• Future Outlook and Leadership Insights

• Key stakeholders supported: Specialty care physicians are “highly important” targets for 97% of benchmark companies, followed by other specialty providers (44% of organizations), PCPs (33%) and sub-specialists (20%)

• Top-rated tactics to increase HCP education reach: Use of 3^rd-party accredited platform (which 100% deem at least somewhat effective), followed by leveraging scalable digital assets (91%), repurposing content across channels (83%), enhanced content relevance to drive peer sharing (76%), abbreviated version of live events (69%) and investment in enhanced online user.

• One-page executive summary synthesizing study background, methodology, and key topics
• Participating benchmark companies
• Key quantitative benchmark findings
• Highlights from deep-dive interviews

• Key external stakeholders prioritized for medical education
• Program strengths and weaknesses across content, reach, innovation, and measurement
• Effective medical education channels for specialists
• Executive narratives around medical education activities
• Effective medical education channels for primary care providers (PCPs)
• Executive narratives around PCP engagement
• Comparison of effective medical education channels for specialists vs. PCPs
• Executive narratives around specialist education
• Budget allocation benchmarks across CME, non-accredited IME, and other medical education modalities
• CME funding concentration at congresses
• Effective CME formats for expanding reach among specialists
• Effective CME formats for expanding reach among primary care providers
• Comparison of effective CME formats - specialists vs. PCPs
• Effective medical education content types for specialists
• Effective medical education content types for PCPs
• Executive narratives around identifying and meeting the needs of specialists and primary care providers
• Comparison of effective medical education content types - specialists vs. PCPs
• Innovative forms of medical education

• Proven tactics to increase the reach of education programs
• Executive narratives around each of these high-impact tactics for improving the reach of education programs
• Successful strategies used by medical education leaders to engage a wider number of providers
• Use of MSLs to expand reach and improve the impact of medical education programs
• Field team sizing benchmarks and average MSLs per indication
• Detailed executive narrative around building integrated educational campaigns co-created with MSLs and other critical functions
• Social media platforms used for peer exchange and organizational engagement cadence
• Engagement frequency by social media platform
• Frequency of education-related support provided to payers
• Adoption of creative pilots for non-providers (payers, IDNs, patients/advocacy)

• Critical KPIs for measuring the value and impact of medical education tactics
• Current performance levels across these KPIs among specialists
• Executive narratives round pre- and post-event outcomes tracking
• Industry perspectives on medical education performance assessment
• Current performance levels across these KPIs among PCPs
• Comparison of current performance levels of KPIs - specialists vs. PCPs
• Use of analytics & AI to drive smarter education approaches
• Lessons learned around effective formats for expanding reach and driving care improvements
• Lessons learned around strategic alignment for expanding reach and driving care improvements
• Lessons learned around measurement practices and vendor selection for expanding reach
• Predicted evolution of medical education over the next 2–3 years