Why Global Medical Affairs Struggles to Make Science Relevant

Medical Affairs teams often design scientific communications from headquarters, assuming that what works in one market will work everywhere. However, a physician in rural India faces entirely different realities than one in Tokyo or Mexico City. In this episode of Transforming Medical Communications, Wesley Portegies is joined by Babak Abbaszadeh, Vice President of Global Medical General Medicine at Amgen, to discuss why global Medical Communications so often miss the mark and what it takes to fix that.

Medical Affairs teams are producing more scientific content than ever, yet clinicians often never see it. In this episode of Transforming Medical Communications, Wesley Portegies is joined by Amit Phull, Chief Clinical Experience Officer at Doximity, to discuss why the “build it and they will come” model no longer works.

SCPs are meant to align teams, shape scientific narratives, and guide communication across the product lifecycle. But in reality, they often end up as static documents that few people actually use. In this episode of Transforming Medical Communications, Wesley Portegies is joined by Enio Polena and Al Balkiewicz of MedComms Experts to share insights on how to make SCPs truly strategic and how to move from simply presenting data to telling scientific stories that clinicians actually remember.

A lack of data isn’t the problem in oncology today. Physicians have access to an incredible volume of clinical trials, treatment pathways, biomarkers, and therapy management considerations. The real challenge is applying that data in the clinic.

The most critical, yet often overlooked, first step in Medical Communications? Truly understanding your audience. In this episode of Transforming Medical Communications, Wesley Portegies is joined by Guy Atchison, Director of Medical Communications Strategy at MedComms Experts, to dive into the process of audience diagnosis. They discuss a structured workshop-driven approach that draws on the frontline knowledge of MSLs, MedInfo teams, and field managers to build detailed audience personas before any content is created.

Diagnosis is often talked about like a formula, but in reality, it’s far messier, more human, and far more dependent on experience, listening, and judgment than most people realize. In this episode of Transforming Medical Communications, Wesley Portegies is joined by Dr. Lisa Sanders, the Medical Director of Yale's Long COVID Multidisciplinary Care Center, the physician behind the Diagnosis column in The New York Times Magazine, and the inspiration behind the TV series House M.D., to share insights on what really drives accurate diagnosis in modern medicine.

How AI is reshaping Medical Communications? In this special compilation episode of Transforming Medical Communications, we walk the floor at the MAPS Americas Annual Meeting in Denver to speak with senior Medical Affairs leaders and share their thoughts on the future of Medical Communication and the right way to integrate AI into MedComms.

Innovation in Medical Communications often hits the same wall: legal and compliance. But what if that wall is just a misunderstood part of the process? In this episode of Transforming Medical Communications, Wesley Portegies is joined by Guy Atchison and Janna Crabb of MedComms Experts to discuss how high-performing teams are successfully navigating compliance while still pushing boundaries.

Conferences are often treated like isolated deadlines: build the booth, deliver the poster, survive the week, move on. But what if congresses were designed as strategic engines for prelaunch readiness, scientific alignment, and long-term HCP engagement? In this episode of Transforming Medical Communications, Wesley Portegies is joined by Mathura Shanmugasundaram, the Director of Global Medical Communications and Medical Affairs for Neuroscience at Takeda, to discuss what a high-impact congress strategy actually looks like.

What is one of the most unprecedented challenges pharma companies face today? Capturing HCP’s attention in under a minute. This challenge has given rise to a critical yet often overlooked strategic tool: the therapeutic area narrative. In this episode of Transforming Medical Communications, Wesley Portegies is joined by the Director of Scientific Communications and Content at Astellas Pharma, Sean Sheffler-Collins, to explore how cohesive therapeutic area narratives can elevate pipeline visibility, foster collaboration, and build trust across stakeholders.