Transcription
Hey guys, welcome to the podcast. Really excited because I have a dear friend that I've known for a long time that's joining us, Dee Gwyn. Welcome to the podcast.
Thank you, Tom, and thank you so much for uh inviting me to be part of this podcast. Um it's an honor to be here and um and I'm looking forward to it. And guys, so Dee and I, like I said, we know each other a long time and um I just think the world of her and I couldn't wait to share her with you. And we were kind of trying to come up with some ideas for topics and we we landed on something that I know you guys always love to hear about. And that is and it's called from activity to impact from activity to impact how MSLs prove their value. We hear the value word being thrown around so much that I think it was time to have another episode about it. But before we do that, Dee, why don't you do um a quick introduction?
Yeah, sure thing. So, um, Dee Gwyn, obviously, um, I like most people, uh, in the medical affairs, field medical affairs position, um, started out as a clinical pharmacist. Um, and was at Duke for a few years and then from there moved to Santa Fe where I worked with, uh, Lovenox, Clavix, I was in the cardiology space, the thrombosis space um, and was an awesome MSL.
Yeah, you were.
And and then uh was eventually promoted um to a regional uh director and then um some changes went about and I joined Biogen where I was at for the past six years uh managing the west field team um in multiple scerosis and immunology. Um probably most of you all are picking up on the southern accent. I spent most of my life um on the on the east coast and so moving out to the west was was a big life change not only for work but also personally. Uh but I live in beautiful Park City. Um and I I would ask that you all please send us your snow from the east. We're having the worst winter ever.
Uh but yeah, that's that's me in a nutshell.
Yeah. And so if you guys are listening and not watching this, you'll you'll um you'll miss the fact that Dee is wearing red today. So why why what's the significance of the red today?
Yeah. So, uh, February is heart awareness month and so, uh, we always have a wear red day for women because we're trying to bring awareness of the cardiovascular risk in women and and also helping them to learn that it's important to know your numbers, your cholesterol, your high blood pressure. Um, you know, heart disease can present differently within women. And so making them aware of this is is very important um in in terms of achieving goals during heart awareness month. And um I want to do a shout out to Kenny Vesta who reminded me that it was wear red day on LinkedIn. Um and so yeah, so so this is uh this is how I picked out my attire today.
I love it. Awesome. And uh and oh, one other thing, guys, before I forget. I knew there's a couple of things we needed to cover before we started talking, but um we are starting to get excited about Fierce Pharma Engage is coming up really soon. It's April 22nd to the 24th and that's in San Diego. This used to be Mass West. So for any of you guys that were big fans of the Medical Affairs Strategic Summit West, this is now called Fierce Pharma Engaged and it's a larger event that brings together crossf functional teams. So it's not just medical affairs, it's also uh farmer marketing, PR and communications and business development and licensing, BDNL. So there's there's four crossf functional groups. Um it's in sunny San Diego. It's a great event. They had their first one last year. It was awesome. They're doing it again this year. Um and you can check it out at Fierce Pharma Engaged. Just type that in. in fierce farm engaged 2026 on the internet and then um and definitely register. I will definitely be there and I hope to see you guys. So DD let's jump into this. So um we we hear the word value a lot. I mean you go to any medical affairs conference there's going to they're going to be talking about value. But the question I have for you and the place I want to start is like what does that mean today right now?
Yeah, exactly. And and thank you for allowing me to come on and talk about a topic that I am very passionate about. Um if I get on my soap box a few times, just uh feel free to not nudge me up nudge nudge me off. But when I think about value today in the context of medical affairs, I think of the impact they are having on clinical behavior that improve patient outcomes. Um and you know historically the role has about has been about counting you know with we see so many engagements we do so many presentations we engage with so many KS that's going to have positive outcomes and you know we started in that metrics path because I really feel like that we allowed our internal stakeholders you know be it the way commercial measures things to kind of tell us how to to tell our story. But you and I both know that it's so much more than what we do. So essentially value today is taking all the stuff that that our teams do the clinical trial support the education the relationships that they create with with Koss and instead of instead of um you know counting those taking it a step further and say okay this team's involvement in this clinical trial uh allowed enrollment to to end earlier. In fact, that did happen earlier in my career is is our team's enrollment allowed a product to be FDA submitted to the FDA a year earlier than planned. And you I mean that's just incredible impact and allowed us to be first in market of a new class of medications. Um it's you know the scientific exchange and in you know education we do that's changing clinical behavior. And then lastly, it's the relationships that we create, those peer-to-peer relationships that we create where Koss become our advocates. It's not just DD out there talking about drug X is better than drug Y and this is, you know, the context and differentiation of the products. They are the ones that are out there carrying the message um of of our product and where the products should be used within the management of of the specific um disease state.
So looking at I mean that that all sounds reasonable and it sounds fair and I think everybody would would agree with that. But so why is it that so many MSLs seem to struggle with this piece and maybe have trouble articulating and understanding the nuances to that messaging? What's where's where's the issue there?
Yeah. Well, I I think when you think about the MSL role and where many of the individuals started their early careers, um you know, we're and I myself suffer from from this as well is we're just we're in, you know, we're usually clinicians. We're in these jobs where we just sort of roll up our sleeves, we get the job done, we do, you know, we take care of our patients and and what have you. And so then we transition into these roles where not everybody is seeing what we are doing from day to day. You know, we're just out there again rolling out up our sleeves um and doing the work. And there's just this assumption that they have that we have is that the internal stakeholders will will get it. Um, but I also think that it's largely because the role initially has was pigeonholed into thinking more is better. You know, the the higher engagements I have, um, the more Congress engagements I have, then I'm I'm doing a better job. And this is something that we as leaders have struggled with because more always doesn't equal better. Um, but I do think that, and you're going to hear me say this throughout the podcast, and it's one of my take-home messages, we have medical, we have to own our narrative. It's it's time for us to stop allowing other functions to to own what our narrative is.
So, the let me I want to the more is better trap. Do you think that like MSLs may think more more is better
um because of you know maybe internal pressure metrics or whether or not metrics are defined well enough but just internal pressures or their ability to maybe convince themselves that if they do more they're actually doing better.
Yeah. I I think that there sometimes is a mistake in that looking that maybe a MSL has higher numbers. All that means time is they're busier.
Yeah.
Okay. And um a leader, you know, once gave me a great phrase, just work the territory. Everything will fall in into place. And so if you're you're focusing on, you know, closing the educational gaps, creating the relationships, giving the medical support that is needed and executing the medical strategy, everything will take care of its place. And I will say that historically the best MSL, the MSLs that brought the the the most value weren't my ones with the the highest numbers. Um but there are pressures internally um because even though upper leadership says we need you know so what you had x number of interactions so what I mean you know executive leadership is starting to ask those questions it still goes back it still circles back around to the numbers the activity the reach and frequency model and so you know as a leader some I have to stop myself whenever I'm coaching my team working with my team to not focus on the numbers. Um, you know, when we have a one-on-one, I don't need to throw up the PowerBI slide that says this is where you are.
Um, and then also when I'm telling their narrative or being their advocate, you know, focusing on the impact so we all own it. It's not just the the MSLs, um, but it's it's the leaders as as well to help change that that mindset.
Yeah, I love that focus on the impact. That kind of changes everything when when you put that put it into that perspective. I do think though that MS some MSLs unintentionally undervalue themselves um both internally and externally. Do you agree with that? Have you Is that something you've seen?
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they um uh you know, it's it's historically, you know, you I I've had many MSLs. I you know, I've probably only had one, maybe two MSLs through my, you know, leadership career, um that of over 10 years that they they knew how to sell themselves.
Yeah. And you know one of them was interestingly enough was um was a sales professional. They were a PhD by training entered cell was a sales professional to but trans transitioned over to the MSL role. That was their actual career goal. They were they were really really uh great. Um, and you know, again, we've we have to the they have to own the narrative. And and I'll give you an example of of a real world example of where this happened is uh in my past leadership roles, I had a field medical personnel that identified a problem within their territory. They also um you know, did the basically they did all the work to resolve the problem which allowed patients to have more uh access to to the product. And so all MSL work it was the internal stakeholders no one else did this. Well the MSL communicated to their stakeholder okay this is you know I just want to update you that this has been done. So about a week later, the um this notification went out and essentially the internal stakeholder was taking credit for what had happened. And so my team team member called me mad like I did everything. They weren't even aware. They didn't even know if No. I'm like I said, but you communicated this to me like a week ago. Why is it that you didn't send out that communication? And so it goes back to this owning the narrative part, telling telling our story. And they said, well, this isn't the way the the usual procedure that we communicate these this within the organization. I said, who made that rule? And and so again, I think that MSLs, you know, they're shy by nature. You is be proud of what you've done. I mean, that particular example, you know, was an incredible accomplishment and and the impact that it had on allowing patients to have more access to the product was was so don't be afraid to tell your tell your story. You all MSLs will always tell you, I do this for the patients. Well, if you can maybe think of that mindset of, you know, being afraid to to um to toot your horn by the way, you know, you're just talk about the patience that you, you know, put that at the focus of of what you improved through your work.
You know, it's interesting that you bring that this topic up of, you know, kind of being your own advocate and speaking up and being the one that um comes forth with some of this stuff. We just I just did an episode um two weeks ago called Shameless Self-Promotion um with Amy Everett who was awesome. It's a great episode. People are commenting still commenting about it because it's that's not something that's talked about. Um, we've I've never actually even had it on my podcast and it's interesting that we're talking about it again now because it's so important and we had a whole episode about it. So, um, so shameless, um, plug, uh, for my shameless self-promotion episode. Go check it out. Um
oh, I was glad to see that. Honestly, I was glad to see that topic. I said, "This is what we need as medical." So, another plug for everyone to go listen, go back to listen.
And it came from Amy. Yeah. Like, it came from her. I was like, "Yeah, we're definitely doing that. That sounds awesome." Like, I I love that concept. Um so we're talking here about um so high value MSL contributions.
Mhm.
What would you say internal departments? So the different internal departments like medical commercial leadership teams what do they actually see as high value MSL contributions would you say?
Um well I will say that this is an area that there is still a disconnect. Um, you know, they say okay, we want to see impact. Um, but may maybe they're not as patient as they need to be to see that impact occur. You know, we always have our quarterly reports and you know, as we both know that the work that our teams do in the field takes time. It's and to draw an example from our commercial colleagues, you know, they do their calls and usually immed you know, within a week or two, they can see prescription volume or fruits of their their labor per se. But with with change in clinical behavior, impact on patients, it it takes time to see those changes. And so when you are changing from an act activity to impact message, you you have to sort of marry those into there like, you know, the activities, you know, are showing from quarter to quarter, they're they're working okay, and so those are sort of the leading indicators. So we believe that if you do X number of this, it's going to do that. But the lagging indicators, which are essentially the impact, it may not change for 12 months. If you're if you're measuring your impact, which is a common way to do it, is mindset shifts within an HCP's beliefs. So it may not change until the end end of the year. And so for, you know, executive leadership that's wanting to see performance now, now, now, um, it's you're not you're not going to see it as as quickly. Um, the other thing is um I lost my train of thought because my dog started uh started started barking. But um is when we're coming up with these these lagging indicators that are measuring our impact, they may not be easy data to get.
And we have to think outside the box. So, you know, it may be social listening. It may be pulling claims database and seeing uh for example in a rare disease environment, the MSL education about a certain rare disease. Maybe their impact is increase in genetic testing o over a period of time. You're not going to see that overnight. So I think that you know at the end of the day, our goals are shared with all of our internal stakeholders and crossf functional partners, and that we want to bring our solutions to patients. But again, we need to own the narrative of what that story is and, you know, getting the buy in from our from our partners as to how that story needs to be told so we're not reverting back to the same x number this and this.
Gotcha. Yeah. And now when we shift to external stakeholders, what um what would you say meaningful value looks like to them um beyond data delivery and slide decks?
Yeah. Um I you know obviously internal external stakeholders they have different needs and and and so they're going to define value. um in different different ways is you know I think that to earn the relationship with an HCP uh and the trust is you have to get a kind of what's in it for me kind of me mentality and so you know they want to be the um the knowledge you know they want to be on the cutting edge of all the all the data so making sure that this is um you know that they're they're getting regular regular updates. Um also it's you know it's also helping them gain exposure es especially whenever you're working with early career uh k so those are how the trusting relationships get created and then when you see them kind of shifting it's when the msl is seen as a peer or a partner to them as a thought partner and I've had you know many cases when it's actually the KO that's reaching out to to them and saying hey did you see this data that was presented like hey what do you what do you think think about that and so to me that's whenever I know that you know the MSL is bringing value um the Kos are having that aha moment and they're out there speak being advocates for our products um and and the patients that that we serve.
Yeah. Do you uh you have any good stories? Like you have any good examples of how maybe there was an MSL that was really good at, you know, this this um this
demonstrating value and what made what made that person stand out?
Yeah. Well, I got lots of stories, Tom.
I know you do. That's why I asked.
Yeah. I've been doing this for for several years. I have many many examples and had had the the uh pleasure of leading many MSLs who you know motivated me and inspired me because of the dedication um that they they had um to the patients and the HCPs which they served. But I think that one of the strongest examples that I've seen most recently is a MSL you know was trusted had met all those partner peer and all that um that partnered with the K to create a to do a study. Um and the study eventually became not just the investigator initiated study but it came one in which the corporation uh wanted wanted to sponsor. Um and so what the problem that they were trying to solve is that the current administration of the product led to an increase of a very rare but serious side effect. Okay. And so the MSL partnered with this KO and created, you know, their hypothesis was was positive in that it did um the that using this drug in this different way from the label improve the safety and the decrease the risk of that serious side effect um that patients could see. And um is just incredible because it change that is the perfect example of this change clinical behavior that improved patient outcomes. Um that MSL didn't get there overnight. Um they had to become a trusted partner um both internally and externally. um they had to have the business acumen to understand of like what this meant uh to the business and then they had to just they had to be a strong collaborator um because there was a lot of moving pieces both externally and um and internally to to make this make this happen. So, so yeah, this is, you know, one of the best examples of what we do and how we can really improve patients lives by changing the way that uh clinical behavior is done.
And so the story you just told, just curious like did the MSL communicate this well and advocate for themsel um and bring that story back to you or did you just happen? Like I'm curious as to what was brought back to you and how you learned of this.
Yeah. Um no the um was very shy about this but because there were so many moving parts it you know all levels of the organization was was aware of it.
Yeah.
And and so but no and the this particular MSL still does not >> advocate for themselves very well. But see that's what that's what our jobs are. I mean when when people ask me as a field director, what do you think your number one job is? And and I said, well, I said actually I think I have two. I think one is that I remove barriers for people so they can do their job. And number two, I tell their story for them internally. I advocate for them. I said, "Your job is to create the story. My job is to tell it for you."
That's why you're such an amazing leader.
Thank you. Thank you. Um, but I think that part of the reason for that is because MSLs are so used to just reporting activity versus sharing impact versus demonstrating value. So, let's talk about that. How does an MSL get better at not just reporting activity, but also incorporating and including how they're demonstrating value?
Yeah. So again, I think this is something that we as leaders really own um is that the you know reporting the activity is never never going to go away.
And you know we have to learn or create systems where the impact can be more readily communicated. Now I will tell you as a disclaimer as you know you do um try to move to more of an impact reporting model and say for example one of your impact measures is change in physician mindset over a time period of time. you do add to the to the burden you know of the MSL in terms of their data recording but you you have to remind them as the why behind that, you know, you keep telling me that you know you it's more it's beyond the metric you um this is how we're transitioning to be able to tell your impact um also, you know, I think we as managers too is Not I I always say it's dangerous to interpret a metric in isolation.
And you know that's why I always cringe when dashboards get sent up, you know, for uh for leaders to view, you know, without the story, the story being told. And so, you know, we as leaders, you know, I'm not just looking at how many times you did something, it's, you know, understanding the story, you know, behind that, what that what did that lead lead to? And, you know, I think as we work with our internal stakeholders, we've got to shift that narrative as well. You know, whenever, you know, my my internal partner is asking me, well, what's your team doing? What what have they accomplished? Well, you know, a lot of times they want to know how many times did they show this new publication to these people? And I'm like, well, no, let let me tell you about, you know, the the tweet that Dr. So and so put out there that, you know, basically summarized this data and how this data could be could be used. So, you know, owning my narrative as I talk to, you know, manage up and manage laterally with my internal stakeholders.
So, let's just say I'm an MSL listening today and I I wanted to do something to improve the value that I show like in the next 90 days.
Yeah.
What would you tell that person?
Um so first of all um you would hope that the um MSL is is you is strategic taking a strategic planning approach to the territory which that is something that we could have a discussion
separate that's part two. Yeah, that's a but um how you know based on what the medical affairs strategy is is identify identify a problem that that or educational gap in your territory. So you know a k an institution or whatever and plan like okay these are the solutions that I think can help close that educational gap within within that area and then you need to then that they you know should step back and see the evolution like when they go back in and they visit that ko has the conversation changed? Do they feel like they're in a true dialogue versus trying to explain the data? Has their insights gotten deeper or are they sitting at a con a congress or a local um educational program and they're uh k is basically paring the words that they told them about the the information that they shared. So that would be, you know, be intentional about it about your your you know what you're trying to do in your territory. Manage your territory. Don't let your territory manage you. And then the last thing I would tell them to do is tell somebody. Tell their tell their crossf functional partners. Tell their manager, you know, as to, hey, I did this. This is the impact that that I that these three activities had.
Yeah. And you know, I started by saying that you hear the word value get thrown around so much, but I also think that sometimes MSLs just get they get a little more caught up in the day-to-day activities. Um, so do you think that it's a mindset? Do you think there's a mindset shift that needs to happen in MSLs to be more value focused?
Yeah, I I do. And I think that number one, it does begin with being strategic with your territory. And I get it. I mean, stuff happens. You get requests here, this happens, you know, get a request from that K. But at the end of the the day, you know, know your territory. Be strategic about your actions. Um and then whenever you you you are you know doing your reflection your data recording of that is think next to you know, what was what was my impact um on that and then like I said, I'm going to say this over and over again, own that narrative and and there's a saying, if you don't tell your story, someone else is going to tell that story for you. And I think that that perfect example that I shared shared earlier about the MSL doing all the work but the crossf functional partner taking the credit for it. That's a someone else will tell their version of the story if you don't tell yours.
I think that actually came up in our that episode with Amy about the shameless self-promotion that exact quote. So clearly we're meant to hear that and we're meant to pay attention to that. So I'll tell you Dee, you're awesome. I knew this was going to be awesome. I couldn't wait. And that was a geez, that was a really quick 30 minutes. So thank you for coming on.
Yeah, thank you so much Tom. I really appreciate it.
Awesome. And as always guys, thank you for joining us. Thank you for all your support of the show. I know there's so many people that are sharing it and they're commenting and um I I really do appreciate it. You guys are the best. I love you all and I'll see you guys next time.