Data does not change practice just because it is positive
An oncology franchise was preparing for upcoming Phase III data in France.
The question was not whether the data would read well. It was how differentiated it would be perceived to be, and what would move in the treatment algorithm as a result.
Those are separate questions. Clinical trials produce results. Clinical practice absorbs them slowly, and only where the result answers something a clinician was already weighing.
Key opinion leaders, and the people actually prescribing
The work was in depth interviews with key opinion leaders and practising oncologists in France.
Both groups, deliberately. KOL mapping alone gives you the interpretation that will be presented at congress. Practising oncologists give you the interpretation that will be applied in clinic.
Three things were assessed: the perceived differentiation of the data, the likely shifts in treatment algorithms, and the scientific questions that would remain unresolved.
The third one is the medical affairs question. What a clinician still wants to know after seeing the data is the agenda for everything that follows.
What would move, and what would stay open
The interviews assessed how differentiated the upcoming data was perceived to be.
They set out the likely shifts in treatment algorithms, which is the practical form the answer takes.
And they surfaced the scientific questions that remained unresolved.
Those unresolved questions became the medical communications priorities. The franchise went in knowing what to address rather than what to announce.
