Strategic Pharmaceutical Meetings Management: Building and Leveraging
Effective Alliances – Sue Potton, CMM
Session summary made possible by
Despite significant differences in corporate culture, pharmaceutical companies must all
follow a common product development cycle, with the largest share of meeting activity
centered in Phase II and III trials and product launches, participants heard in a panel
session led by Sue Potton, CMM, a consultant with George P. Johnson Co.
But “this is by no means static in any company,” Potton said. “The mix of types of
meetings and events and when they are held will change constantly to meet market
demand.”
With heavy fines and even jail terms at stake, a common imperative for planners, brand
marketing teams, procurement agencies, and third-party agencies is to understand and
comply with the regulations that govern pharmaceutical meetings.
Betsy Bondurant, CMP, CMM, president of Bondurant Hospitality Consulting LLC, said
her previous biopharmaceutical employer in the United States had changed its approach
to meetings and events as the regulatory environment shifted. She distinguished
between internal meetings for product representatives and external gatherings for
medical professionals, explaining that “we really had to get completely out of the logistics
portion of planning CME programs.”
Potton agreed that agencies in the United States now find themselves working with two
sets of decision-makers: the companies themselves, and the medical education
providers that produce accredited programs under restricted educational grants. A
broader list of stakeholders would include regulatory and legal advisors, brand teams,
procurement, and suppliers, as well as the “key opinion leaders” (KOLs) who attend the
sessions.
Bondurant said the meetings department in her previous company had no need for
regulatory advice in its first eight to 10 years of operation, and its relationship with the
legal department was limited to contract language. Five years later, the partnership has
broadened, with a far larger range of issues in play. For example, regulations now
prohibit meetings in resorts and five-star facilities, to the extent that a qualified property
may be dropped from a bidders’ list if the word “spa” is a part of its name.
“When we see these upgrades, we panic and ask them not to,” Bondurant said.
A participant noted that facility classifications are ambiguous and vary among countries,
so that a four-star hotel in France might earn five-star status in Brussels. Caroline Hill,
client services director with Universal CIT, said the issue goes back to perception, and
turns on a company’s ability to regulate its own practices.
“It isn’t an easy topic,” she said. “It’s challenging for us internally as well as externally,
and it’s probably one of the biggest areas of discussion.”
A participant noted and Bondurant agreed that the rules are tougher for outside
stakeholders than for in-house staff. “I thought it was interesting, as a company, that we
could treat our employees much better than our health care professionals.”
A participant said an added layer of complexity is introduced when planners must
account for national regulations in a host country, regulations in the company’s country
of origin, and national rules that may apply to specific segments of the target audience.
Potton stressed the importance of understanding all the various regulations before a
meeting goes onsite: it is a matter of complying with the rules, not trying to negotiate
them.
Andrew Gilkerson, a meetings specialist with the European procurement department at
Pfizer Inc., said pharmaceutical companies have incurred $4 billion in penalties since
2000. Not all of that related to meetings, but “those sorts of fines are driving us to be
compliant,” he said. “We have no choice.”
The solution is more complex than a hotel changing its marketing strategy, Gilkerson
said: “There’s a local perception of the hotel and a regulatory function in the company.”
Pharmas are beginning to regulate in-house colleague meetings more closely, partly to
control costs, and partly to control the perceptions that would arise if any meeting were
seen to have taken place in a five-star property.
Given the high stakes attached to pharma regulation, a participant asked whether
planners should leave it to procurement to find compliant locations. Gilkerson said that is
the trend, but “availability tells a different story….We’re often driven to be a bit more
creative.”
Alex Ringhofer, congress manager with F. Hoffman-La Roche Ltd., said the relationship
with brand managers adds an entirely different dimension. The brand team will want to
ensure compliance with regulations and budgets, but will also be highly motivated to
maximize a product’s market impact. Brand managers may have been involved with a
product for five or 10 years by the time a meetings team arrives on the scene, “so they’re
sold on the product and want to make sure the best light shines on it.”
Above all, brand managers want to make the most of their relationships with KOLs who
will become advocates for their product.
“That’s a very difficult environment as well,” Ringhofer said. “These people need to make
sure they’re credible in their scientific communities. On the other hand, they have an
expectation that they’ll be treated very well and taken care of when they go to a meeting
organized by a pharmaceutical company.” Physicians are becoming more accustomed
to the regulatory limits on hospitality, but “it’s always a very fine line to keep them happy,
and at the same time credible and compliant.”
Bondurant added that the average health care professional may be invited by a halfdozen pharmaceutical companies to speak or participate in events, in addition to any
touchpoints that may occur at major conferences. From that perspective, it becomes
even more important to create memorable experiences for participants, while complying
with the regulations. “These people are being hit on all the time, and can afford to be
very selective about where they go and when they travel,” she said.
Gilkerson said meeting professionals often expect procurement to “treat everything like a
commodity,” since procurement practices are well established in manufacturing. But
“procurement is very new to meetings and events, which is one reason I was taken into
the team.” Procurement will look at the major, obvious budget lines like facilities, event
agencies, and production, and will seek ways to optimize the supply chain, recognizing
that different types of business relationships have evolved in different markets.
But Gilkerson was clear about what procurement will not do. “There’s a myth that
procurement is involved at the transaction level,” but “I don’t know many procurement
departments that have those resources.” Procurement may try to leverage the
relationship with a particular major vendor, or take a deal negotiated by one part of a
company and extend it more widely. But “it’s got to work operationally. If we talk about a
preferred vendor network, the meeting planners have to have the tools to know what that
means and how to get into it.”
Hill said agency account managers have been trying harder to work strategically and
share decision-making with major clients. The role includes working closely with
suppliers, to make sure they understand the special requirements and nuances attached
to a pharma meeting.
A participant asked how venues could speed up the process of contracting with agencies
by ensuring that all the rules, regulations, and requirements are stated up front.
Gilkerson said Pfizer is developing a standard hotel contract through a process in which
suppliers get an idea of what will be expected of them, while the company learns what
will work on the ground. After that, he said it will be the agencies’ role to prevent
surprises.
Hill emphasized the high stakes attached to pharma codes, recalling that in her previous
company, “if we didn’t comply with any of our regulations, the bottom line was that our
medical director could be put in jail. That is a real impact for the whole industry.”
Variations in regulations among countries “add a further order of complexity,” Hill said.
Faced with an alphabet soup of regulatory agencies, she urged participants to get the
details right. “If you don’t know, just own up to that and find someone who does, so you
can back up whatever you’re doing.”
Potton noted that the regulations refer to pharmaceutical companies “and their agents,”
which means that agencies must follow the rules as rigorously as their clients. “At the
end of the day, you are just as responsible as the company.”
Potton introduced a case study of a pharmaceutical company launching a new
respiratory product to a target audience of 300 specialist physicians and 50 sales and
marketing personnel. With the launch four months away and all the brand creative in
place, she invited the group to divide into teams and explore the specific interests of
three different parties to the launch—brand marketing, procurement, and the third-party
agency.

The brand marketing group agreed that it needed information on attendee
profiles, the brand message, and the approaches that had been used with the
same group in previous years. Participants emphasized the need for a solid
communication plan to reinforce company and product positioning and deliver
a message that would encourage participants to attend this meeting, rather
than a competitor’s event.

The procurement group focused on compliance, cost efficiency, and budget.
“Once the brand people let us know what they want to do, we’ll tell them
what’s possible,” the group rapporteur said. Key issues include the
accessibility and perception of the meeting location, availability of preferred
suppliers, commissions and mark-ups, contracting procedures, and the aims
and goals of the meeting.

The third-party agency started out discussing objectives, ROI expectations,
and the messages that participants would be expected to take away from the
meeting. After that, a discussion of budgets would lead into a dialogue with
procurement and a round of audience and stakeholder research, to ensure
that participants’ expectations would be met. After that, the agency would
focus on logistics and the details of meeting management.
Potton asked the panel to comment on the importance of the strategic alliances behind
pharmaceutical meetings. Ringhofer said strategic partners have the knowledge to
function as an extension of the in-house team, and can be a part of a company’s effort to
consolidate costs and reduce the burden of administrative duties. Gilkerson emphasized
that the ultimate objective is to satisfy the customer, and procurement would not put the
right suppliers in place unless customer objectives were understood.
“Compliance and cost control can only happen with a strategic alliance, and that’s an
opportunity,” he said. Given the specificity of the regulations that apply to pharma
meetings, an agency that knows the terrain can make itself very difficult to replace.
Hill emphasized the initial investment an agency must make to learn a strategic partner’s
specific needs. Potton said it may seem “like the drawbridge is up and you will never get
in,” but it should be possible to find out when a prospective client will be considering new
strategic partners. She encouraged vendors to be creative, do their homework, and
“really get under the skin of their business and what they do.”