Redefining Medical Affairs Strategy with Data
How Deeper Data Insights Are Driving Impact at Johnson & Johnson
As the role of Medical Affairs continues to evolve, data plays an increasingly critical role in shaping key opinion leader (KOL) engagement strategies, identifying care gaps, and ensuring equitable healthcare delivery.
At Johnson & Johnson (J&J), Jennifer Wheeler, Associate Director of Analytics in Immunology Medical Affairs, has been at the forefront of leveraging data to drive smarter, more impactful decision-making. In a recent conversation, she shared how H1 has helped her team move beyond traditional approaches to transform their Medical Affairs strategy with comprehensive data insights.
Moving Beyond Ad Hoc Requests to a Strategic Data-Driven Approach
Historically, Medical Affairs teams at J&J depended on data from other departments that weren’t always tailored to their needs. Without dedicated analytics support, they relied heavily on subjective insights from field teams. However, that approach has shifted significantly by gaining access to the right data points that are relevant to their team.
With a more data-driven approach, J&J’s Medical Affairs team has moved beyond traditional sources of insight, allowing them to uncover key healthcare providers they may have previously overlooked.
Now that we have more of a breadth of data where we can look at claims data and bibliometric data such as publications, claims, and trials, it’s really enabled us to uncover people that we might not have known in our territories.
With access to more precise and actionable data, J&J’s Medical Affairs team can now proactively shape their strategy for identifying KOLs rather than react to individual requests.
Redefining MSL Engagement: From Quantity to Quality
The expectations for Medical Affairs teams have evolved, moving away from simply tracking the number of interactions with KOLs toward a focus on meaningful, high-impact engagements.
"We’ve really moved from an expectation of the quantity of engagements versus the quality of engagements."
“In the past,” Jennifer shared, “we had metrics for MSLs that kind of looked like, let’s make sure we’re talking to these four key opinion leaders, maybe four times a year. But now we can really look at how providers are treating and deploying our field medical teams against our materials and tools that make the most sense to get the information where it needs to go. Not necessarily how many times we need to speak to somebody, but rather having a focus on the medical education.”
This shift allows J&J’s Medical Affairs team to ensure the right resources reach the right providers, improving the impact of their educational efforts.
Uncovering the Right Voices: Strengthening Advisory Boards
Traditionally, advisory boards relied on a select group of thought leaders, but Jennifer’s team recognized the need for a broader, more data-driven approach to selecting advisors.
“One of the things that we’ve done with H1 is really help beef up our advisory board selection,” Jennifer said. “We tend to want to use key opinion leaders or people that we’ve used in past ad boards.But what H1 has helped us do is develop a comprehensive set of advisors based on key medical questions. So we can develop our plans for advisory boards for the whole year and determine what business questions we want to be answered.
Then we can find the people that we think would best be able to answer those business questions for us based on all of the data that H1 is able to provide—so claims data, treatment pattern data, past publications, past trials, whether or not they’re favorable to speaking with industry or not.”
Beyond just expanding the pool of advisors, this approach has also led to more diverse perspectives.
“We’ve moved beyond just using maybe the same set of advisors over and over to being able to get a more broad set of opinions by going just beyond typical key opinion leaders and moving more into maybe a community-type advisor or somebody that has a larger patient population in a specific race or ethnic group. I think that’s really helped us bring breadth and depth to our ad board selections too.”
Using Data to Map and Analyze the Patient Journey
One of the most significant advancements has been the ability to analyze the patient journey—an aspect of Medical Affairs strategy that was previously overlooked due to a lack of data.
“I think the patient journey wasn’t really something that we really discussed before we had data,” Jennifer admitted. “But now that we have a comprehensive set of data, we’re able to see where the patient starts care from the time of diagnosis and how they may switch between physicians and which types of physicians are providing that care.”
These valuable insights have allowed J&J to rethink its educational focus and make informed decisions. “Sometimes we see that the physician that diagnoses isn’t necessarily the physician that treats,” Jennifer noted. “So now maybe we’re able to refocus our education to maybe not the actual main specialist, but maybe the periphery care team, like the nurse practitioner or a physician’s assistant.”
"Just being really able to understand all of the touch points in that patient’s journey from the time of diagnosis throughout their treatment history."
By leveraging these actionable insights, J&J can ensure that all healthcare providers involved in patient care are equipped with the right knowledge and resources.
Advancing Health Equity with Data-Backed Insights
Health equity is a core priority for J&J, and data has become an essential tool in ensuring diverse patient populations receive appropriate care.
“At J&J, health equity is really a part of everything we do, particularly in Medical Affairs,” Jennifer said. “We want to make sure that all patients are getting the care that they need and that our products are representative of all the patients out there that could possibly use them.”
With access to H1’s comprehensive demographic data, J&J has been able to analyze treatment patterns across racial and ethnic groups to identify underserved populations.
“One of the things that H1 has really helped us understand is, based on a certain region of the United States, what the race and ethnic makeup is of that region, and then you can also look at how patients in a particular racial or ethnic group are being treated in that area and understand if maybe there’s a patient population that’s underserved.”
This level of insight enables J&J to adjust its Medical Affairs strategies, ensuring that medical education and clinical trial recruitment efforts are reaching the right populations.
Looking Ahead: The Future of Medical Affairs and AI-Driven Insights
Jennifer believes that the future of Medical Affairs lies in the ability to quickly process and disseminate data, ensuring that providers have access to the right information at the right time.
“With all the information out there and providers being able to get information at their fingertips, I think it’s going to be really important for Medical Affairs to quickly assimilate data and get it out to providers as quickly as possible,” she explained.
“What H1 is going to be able to help with is maybe summarizing that data or using AI or machine learning to help collate and summarize data quickly into digestible points that we can distribute to providers where needed.”
As Medical Affairs continues to evolve, J&J is at the forefront of leveraging data to drive strategic decision-making, improve KOL engagement plans, and enhance health equity. At H1, we are not just keeping up with the changing landscape—we’re shaping the future of Medical Affairs. Find out more by requesting a demo today.
