Our Take
Activity metrics are not outcomes; biotech Medical Affairs teams are stuck reporting what they do, not what their doctors actually prescribe or patients actually take.
Why it matters
Medical Affairs is a cost center with no clear ROI accountability in most pharma organizations. Until teams can connect their work to prescription volume, treatment adherence, or clinical adoption, they remain vulnerable to budget cuts and reduced influence on launch strategy.
Do this week
Medical Affairs leadership: audit your current KPIs this week and separate activity metrics (calls made, events held) from outcome metrics (prescriber behavior, patient adherence, market share) so you can reset targets by quarter end.
Medical Affairs Reporting Lags Behind Sales and Marketing
Medical Affairs teams at biotech and pharma companies have made progress on internal alignment and data sharing, but measurement remains fragmented. Most teams track activity (number of physician engagements, speaker programs, advisory board meetings) rather than outcomes (prescribing behavior, treatment initiation, clinical adoption rates). This gap between effort and impact creates a persistent credibility problem when justifying budget to finance and sales leadership.
The report, based on feedback from Medical Affairs practitioners, identifies three core capability gaps: incomplete data on whether physician engagement leads to prescription changes, weak attribution models that connect specific Medical Affairs interventions to market movement, and limited tools for real-time outcome measurement. Many teams lack the analytics infrastructure to isolate their contribution from sales, marketing, and clinical evidence programs that run in parallel.
Measurement Gaps Erode Strategic Influence
Without demonstrable links between Medical Affairs activity and commercial outcomes, the function defaults to a support role. It answers questions from field teams and provides data to sales reps, but it does not drive strategy. This is a structural problem: sales teams can show revenue attributed to their effort; Medical Affairs cannot.
The consequence is predictable. In downturns, Medical Affairs budgets get cut faster than sales. In launches, Medical Affairs gets tasked with demand generation but allocated resources based on cost minimization, not outcome potential. Until teams can show that a specific engagement model moves the needle on prescriber behavior or patient adherence, they will remain reactive and underfunded relative to their actual influence on adoption.
Build Attribution Models First, Then Expand Reach
Most Medical Affairs teams approach this backwards. They expand programs first (more advisory boards, more speaker events, more channels) and then ask how to measure them. The result is a data collection problem disguised as a strategy problem.
Start with a single high-value outcome (e.g., prescriber adoption among key opinion leaders in oncology) and work backwards to identify which Medical Affairs touchpoints correlate with that outcome. Use physician panel data, electronic health records (EHR) claims data, or longitudinal surveys to establish baseline prescribing behavior before and after engagement. Do not rely on self-reported effectiveness from physicians or sales teams. Once you have one clean attribution model, replicate it for other programs and expand from there.
The teams that will win budget and influence over the next 18 months are those that move from reporting activity to predicting outcomes. That requires discipline, patience, and analytics talent. It also requires saying no to new programs until you can measure the old ones.