Having spent years as a creative executive for a small but bustling digital production agency I worked with clients and their agencies of record to design, produce, and deploy solutions for both medical affairs, and research & development groups, as well as commercial groups for F.D.A. approved products, and services. These solutions are used in many ways; congress events, and tradeshows, HCP and patient education, and day-to-day productivity for reps, MSLs, and stakeholders.
As an example, I collaborated with GE Healthcare stakeholders on a digital platform to create a holistic patient focused interactive program that shows all the GE Healthcare products and services available (from PET scanners and imaging solutions to therapies) available in their One GE Healthcare offering. This was a new and important development that got different but connected divisions of the organization collaborating on where and how they involved in the patient journey. This platform quickly transformed from a one shot platform to support various global tradeshow and congress events to becoming a campaign that later evolved into multiple tactics (aka custom touchscreen app, website, iPad app, etc.) driven by a central CMS to empower the GEH teams to adjust content to the various audience segments (HCP, patients, etc.).
Other examples are the custom apps, websites and interactives design to educate and inform folks about medical affairs pipelines, product eDetails, and more therapy-specific content -whether it is interactive demos (like the drag/drop demo for Medtronic below), or therapy-specific like the interactive mechanism of action (MOA) for Biogen Idec’s Fampyra drug (above). All of these solutions are carefully scripted, wireframed, and mapped for regulatory reviews each step of the way.
The Shift during COVID
As we all remember during COVID much of business was done remotely. This meant lots of Zoom calls and live streaming and not a lot of keynote events, tradeshows, congress events, and KOL speaker events. In-person was off the table. During this time we created a browser-friendly SaaS platform that allowed clients to create unique virtual events. This was done using a best in class partners like IBM Watson streaming services, Google Firebase, and Agora secure video services to allow visitors to interact in real-time 3D spaces, connect with SMEs, and livestreams. This allowed virtual event-goers to co-experience real time 3D branded spaces, learn about the latest studies, connect with MSL in private video chat spaces, and catch live streams.
Some were designed as virtual booth experiences complete with eDetails and other collateral for commercial ‘facing’ experiences and pipelines and clinical trials collateral for the Medical Affair ‘facing’ ones. Clicking on an avatar at a reception area in one of these booths usually took you to a live FaceTime-style meeting with an MSL. These seemingly simple experiences had a lot of engagement to offer, we worked hard to keep the end product simple and elegant.
The platform allows for different UI schemes. Some supported simple event or product-centric microsites while others were immersive spaces that represented a much larger offering. On the admin side of this platform is a simple flag system that allows us to enable/disable features based on the requested features. This process made it very simple for us to stand up a unique property in a short amount of time. The Ingrezza site was published without the immersive 3D views and designed as a microsite that focused on core product information, and ISI.
Engagement and reporting are always top of mind when developing these experiences understanding project owners need to serve up ROIs. Through either discovery or briefing priorities are shared and carried into the wireframe process. This assures the most important messaging is built into the experience and supported by the analytics model so reporting can quantify success clearly for our clients (AstraZeneca, Amgen, Boehringer Ingelheim, Exelixis, and others).
