The new era of medical affairs: busting myths and supercharging strategic value

By Steph Wasek

Can you believe there are still outdated myths about the strategic value Medical Affairs (MA) brings to the table? There’s enough misinformation in healthcare – we don’t need to add our own. So let’s dispel that ‘mythinformation’ right here.

Myth: Primary success drivers lie outside MA’s control.

Reality: Suggesting that drug quality and price are the only factors that matter is reductive. In fact, MA is the foundation of credibility, establishing deep trust and scientific acceptance that make data meaningful and market viable. Without MA’s non-promotional, rigorous scientific exchange, prescribers remain sceptical. MA builds the necessary foundation for scientific belief, which is the precondition for all commercial uptake (you have to pre-sell before you can sell). MA’s early intelligence shapes the market, ensuring that the ultimate value story (price + clinical benefit) resonates.

Opportunity: MA can seize control of the narrative by owning the data-to-strategy pipeline and establish an early-insights engine. Free up MSLs to listen deeply by having systematic processes – including compliant discussion guides, engagement decision-making tools and clear feedback channels – for gathering, synthesising and validating real-world and clinical insights from key external experts as early as phase 2. This intelligence must be processed into actionable recommendations for R&D (eg, shaping phase 4 design) and Market Access (eg, defining payer evidence needs) before key decisions are finalised, and gives visibility of MA impact. It also ensures strong MA strategy out of the launch gate.

Myth: MA is too constrained and not focused on revenue.

Reality: This myth fixates on MA’s compliance boundaries, arguing that because MA cannot promote, its function is purely cost-based and risk-focused. Nonsense. Let’s flip that view: compliance boundaries are vital guard rails that benefit everyone involved and, if approached with purpose, allow MA to step into the role of long-game revenue enabler.

MA generates the real-world evidence (RWE) demanded by prescribers and regulators to secure and sustain market access over the product life cycle. Furthermore, by being the only compliant channel to answer complex, unsolicited medical information requests, MA supports appropriate use, differentiating the product in specialised medicine and protecting long-term reputation. It’s not compliance guard rails, but the slow global medical, legal and regulatory (MLR) review bottleneck – a structural, not individual, issue – that block scientific content progress. This must be fixed to enable agile RWE dissemination.

Opportunity: A robust scientific communications platform is a must for MA, but take a step back from key claims and data, and start by planning with MLR stakeholders in a way that target the core scientific content to push, pull and exchange techniques. In short, account for how your customers want to interact with you in a scientific communications matrix. This would enable rapid localisation, assembly and distribution of materials through pre-approved pathways, dramatically reducing time spent in MLR review cycles. With this small twist, MA shifts from a reactive approval body to a proactive content engine.

Myth: High MA performance doesn’t guarantee success, which can be derailed by competitor action or unforeseen events.

Reality: Life is unpredictable – so we need to be able to count on truth and trust. That’s why it’s data-and-facts-focused MA that do the hard-to-quantify work of maximising pharma’s ethical impact on patient care. MA’s deep scientific engagement ensures optimal patient selection and appropriate use, which leads to better patient outcomes. These outcomes, in turn, fuel the RWE that validates the product to payers and regulatory bodies – a virtuous circle that makes success sustainable and defensible against competitors. And when a product isn’t a first-in-class novelty? It’s MA’s scientific differentiation capabilities that bring the impact.

Opportunity: To meet stakeholder needs, MA must ensure that its strategic scientific messaging is effectively reaching the modern communications ecosystem. This means developing generative, connection-focused strategies for MSL engagement across the board: ensuring your data is cited when HCPs do a web search (yes, including in AI results), making the most of high-impact offline events (for scientific depth and boosting AI search), and uncovering where HCPs are having conversations so that you can deliver dynamic scientific storytelling – both on platforms and face-to-face. This isn’t about scattering materials across the omnichannel spectrum, but about identifying where MA can derive the deepest impact compliantly, to maximise the return on scientific investment.

So the secret is out: MA creates the scientific conditions for long-term, trustworthy commercial success. We know the key challenges MA faces, and work in strategic collaboration to debunk myths and supercharge MA teams. Let’s spread the truth about MA together.