Nearly Half of Pharma’s Promotional Speaker Programs Teams have Been in Place Less than Three Years

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Approximately 80% of surveyed pharmaceutical companies have centralized promotional speaker programs in place according to a new study published this week by Cutting Edge Information. 51% of the companies have only had these centralized teams in place for fewer than three years.

“Promotional Speaker Programs: Successfully Managing Speaker Bureaus and Recruiting Thought Leaders”

Companies create promotional speaker programs to advance product awareness among key opinion leaders (KOLs). The top two categories supported by speaker programs by surveyed companies are oncology and specialized disease states, such as anemia. This is especially true at Top 50 companies. Promotional speaker programs at Top 10, small pharma and device companies support a number of other therapeutic areas including rheumatology, surgery and gastroenterology.

The study, “Promotional Speaker Programs: Successfully Managing Speaker Bureaus and Recruiting Thought Leaders,” found that surveyed companies’ promotional speaker programs are involved to different degrees and impart their strategies across multiple products and therapeutic areas. One surveyed Top 50 company develops its speaker program objectives by providing content for speaker programs and targeting key opinion leaders situated at both country and regional levels.

“Companies focused on specific diseases broaden their approach to speaker slide decks,” said Michelle Vitko, senior research analyst at Cutting Edge Information. “These companies are now shifting from slide decks that center around a specific disease state to incorporating ideas that are more applicable to a wider audience.”

“Promotional Speaker Programs: Successfully Managing Speaker Bureaus and Recruiting Thought Leaders” (http://www.cuttingedgeinfo.com/research/marketing/pharma-speaker-programs/) features detailed data and charts showing ideal promotional speaker background, recruitment methods, training and event compensation. It also includes discussions and data illustrating promotional speaker event management metrics, including typical attendance, average cost per attendee and the best and worst times to hold events.

This report is designed to:

Ensure top quality promotional speaker programs and boost attendance rates.
Identify and compensate the ideal promotional event speakers.
Understand and adapt to the impending Sunshine Act and increased transparency’s impact on promotional speaker events.
Allocate funding and cross-functional staff to best support promotional speaker program teams.
Leverage speaker programs as an avenue to promote awareness for disease states when products are still in early development stages.

For more information about promotional speaker programs, contact Cassie Demeter at 919-433-0389.