Amgen Leader Discusses Future Trends for Medical Affairs Professionals

May 7, 2021

Last year, the Medical Affairs Professional Society (MAPS) and Vice President of Amgen Europe Medical Affairs Dr. Isma Benattia announced results of a survey targeting medical affairs professionals. The survey was repeated earlier this year. Now, Dr. Isma Benattia shares her thoughts on how COVID-19 has impacted the relationship between medical science liaisons (MSLs) and healthcare providers (HCPs) and what the future may hold. She also discusses how telehealth has progressed over the past year and how patients may gain a voice within the drug development pipeline.

“What we’ve learned is that HCPs still value fact-to-face (FTF) interactions (it’s human nature), and they want to believe things can go back to normal. So, we see that FTF will remain an important part of how Medical Affairs will interact with HCPs – not just the way MSLs reach HCPs, but how other Medical functions work with their stakeholders as well,” adding, “We talk a lot about HCP engagement and education. However, there’s not enough effort made to engage and educate patients; this is not about creating a new document or another booklet. We should use digital tools for engaging and to educating patients in a digital era and leverage other key learnings of COVID-19. It requires agility, willingness to innovate and high ethical, as well as quality standards.” Learn more here.