'Honest brokers' – an agency perspective

The interface between opinion leaders and the pharmaceutical industry is often the medical education agency. In addition to many other roles, agencies take care of the housekeeping elements of the KOL-pharma relationship, allowing dialogue between both parties to be conducted at a scientific level. Agencies may also act as intermediaries, initiating and facilitating communications, brokers of the relationship.

In her presentation 'Redefining expert relationships - balancing expert aspirations with brand needs' Sue Wright, Director of Business Communications for Adelphi Communications, gave an overview of the agency role and the extent to which Adelphi have tried to reassess the relationship.

There are two guiding principles, says Wright. Firstly, conduct yourself in such a way that anything written about you on a bus shelter would not offend. Secondly, always remember the man on the Clapham omnibus and how he might view the evidence.

The key is balance - between the needs and aspirations of the experts and industry goals and objectives. 'There's nothing wrong with profit' says Wright ‘ we should be proud that. It's profit that goes on development and innovation'. Alongside the experts and pharma, she went on to describe a third important stakeholder - society at large, with its concerns that current alignments are too close and that patients are not best served.

These concerns inevitably mean change engendered by scrutiny. Wright shared the Adelphi vision of the future, a consensual relation between experts and industry based on transparency, the furtherance of medicine, better mutual understanding and fair reward. She illustrated her point with an example of an anti-infective agent that was used mainly as a last ditch therapy. The perception of practising clinicians differed and by facilitating open trust-based discussion between the company and the experts, a different treatment sequence emerged. This is at the same time the hardest and yet most rewarding aspect of an agency's brokerage.

Wright concluded by outlining Adelphi's approach to relationship alignments. The first step is understanding of the area, based on wide consultation. Then follows primary and secondary research to identify experts. The final part is the alignment of experts with the pharmaceutical clients, to find a relationship that is equitable to all.