An interview with Lucy Walker, Operations Director at Scout
Close your eyes and think of KOL Mapping – what do you see?
“A spider web of connections – a complex pattern of interconnecting threads and patterns. It’s fascinating.”
Mapping is a journey of discovery
It’s like pieces of a jigsaw – the more you uncover and connect, the more of the picture you can see. Frequently, it’s not the picture that you thought it was when you started, so an open mind is really important.
It’s exciting to think you can help your clients really build on their knowledge. Often people think they know the KOLs in their area; but do they really know them? Do they really know the full range of potential connections and the extent of their interests? Every person can bring their own individual strengths and diversity to a plan.
Finding the data is an intelligence test
It’s like being in a maze. Some routes are blocked, and you have to work out how to get around them and gather as much intelligence as you can on your way to the centre. That’s the whole ‘scouting for data’ aspect of our new brand – we do look really hard!
Finding the story is the magic
The other vital part is figuring out what that data means for the client or challenge in hand. You’ve found the people, but can you use the data to get to know those people and work with them in a meaningful way? If you understand the data and people involved in great detail, you can map your KOLs more intelligently and precisely, which puts you in a better position to create an effective KOL engagement strategy.
What does ‘Precision’ mean to you?
Pharma is a highly competitive market which is why our clients have very specific needs that require us to look for very specific people or for very particular purposes, considering very focused metrics. Even the smallest margins can go a long way in terms of competitive edge.
Precision is about that careful consideration of where the client is in their journey. We look at their market positioning, access and geography as well as where they are in the product life cycle; growth, maturity, saturation or even decline. It is also in the type of the person we need: their precise interests within the therapy area and disease. We consider a company’s particular style in our response too; as they may be looking for more experienced partners, or their priority may be to appear forward thinking in which case a different strategy might be required. We also recognise the importance of diversity in KOL partnerships and look to deliver this in the lists we provide.
At Scout, our human inputs and outputs are critical to our work. We always have our people interrogate the research, to make sure every single person on a list is exactly who we were looking for; this attention to detail and precision is fundamental for us. We would never want to deliver what appears to be a comprehensive list of KOLs, only for the client to discover that some of the people are not who they need, have retired or are focussed on the wrong angle.
Precision has many layers of complexity
Things get really interesting when you start layering the unusual over the niche, over the specific.
Not many companies can do a mapping in countries where the data are more limited or where there are complex language challenges. If they can cover a geography, they might be able to find the top 10 people in a disease area, the ‘obvious’ low hanging fruit, but not the depth and breadth we can uncover thanks to our sophisticated data analytics combined with human intelligence.
Experts in Alzheimer’s disease would have been an easy target, but regulatory experts in early Alzheimer’s in Japan; that was more of a challenge.
Another interesting project involved looking for KOLs in HIV and Hepatitis in Kazakhstan. One of the most important things on this sort of project is having local language expertise as well as knowledge and experience of the market. In Kazakhstan, this approach meant a real understanding of the local culture and politics which are sensitive around this area. As well as going for the direct data, our researchers on the ground had to be true investigators, finding related indications, the tiniest scrap of information and building a picture from there.
So, you see you really do need to have the strength and tenacity of a spider, the attention to detail and vision to see the full (jigsaw) picture for precise KOL mapping in Kazakhstan – or frankly anywhere in the world.
Get in touch if you need our help!
lucy.walker@scoutdata.co.uk
