Using Technology for Smarter Speaker Program.

Over the past 20 years, the pharmaceutical industry has driven a major shift to ensure that all marketing activities associated with the promotion of drugs are tightly regulated. Not only does this include promotional materials but also all associated meetings, customer interactions and HCP/KOL transfers of value. So, it’s critical that your campaign management platform allows you to ensure speaker program compliance.

The Evolution of Compliance

Gone are the days of a sales rep simply creating a meeting themselves, sending out invitations willy-nilly, and flying by the seat of their pants with contracts, attendance sheets and registration. Now there are ‘quality control’ and restrictions applied on HCP payments and venue selection, and requirements for administrative proof of contractual engagement and a ‘track and trace’ system. This mean that sales meetings can now be administratively demanding as well as risky business if all the i’s aren’t dotted and the t’s aren’t crossed. Fortunately, alongside the changing environment of Pharma self-regulation, technology has moved and developed too. Although corporate ownership of compliance procedures is still necessary, 

Cloud based software packages now have the capacity to streamline all the compliance processes from conception to completion and wrap-up of the meeting process. An example of this is the Pharmagin speaker meeting program platform, which can help to ensure that from both an internal and external adherence aspect that compliance is at the center of organizing these important commercial exercises. To consider all aspects sequentially will highlight the importance of compliance in tandem with how technology can now assist.

Compliance During Planning 

As a first step, program budget allocation can be conducted through the software platform, ensuring that the meeting fits within permitted spending limits. Once the program is confirmed, speaker selection may also be managed directly by the program based on availability and previous engagement terms. Given the necessity of disclosing HCP earnings from each pharma company, it is a distinct advantage to be able to observe current payment levels in real time. As each contracted speaker has a Honoraria payment limit set dependent on level of influence (local, national or international) this consideration is something which may 

Compliance During the Event

One thing that the Sunshine Act and similar legislation dictate is that any delegate attending a Pharma sponsored event must openly disclose any Transfer of Value (ToV). Providing an on-line system of registration prior to the actual event makes this compliance much easier to achieve, as it means that HCP / KOL information can be captured by the software in advance of the event (or pulled from an integrated CRM). On arrival at the event the HCP / KOL signature can be captured electronically ensuring that paper admin is reduced to a minimum while maximum security is maintained. Not only does the Pharmagin system enable signature capture as proof of attendance at a meeting it also enables disclaimers with regards to ToV at the same time. Using Pharmagin will enable you to capture any expenses (Honoraria, ToV, etc) automatically, are assigned to their respective HCP / KOL or Speaker and transferred to an integrated CRM or other system to maintain reporting compliance.

Compliance in Reporting

Furthermore, due to the nature of the technology a steady internet connection is no longer a requirement – 

The Pharmagin cloud-based speaker meeting platform has the capacity to ensure speaker program compliance can be easily adhered to and importantly creates the ability to store information permanently and open up visibility on compliance processes which has previously not been possible. Due to the pharma industry’s commitment to these policies, this is one of the most important aspects of promotional activity organization and is pivotal to ethical promotion of medicines. This facility fully interfaces with all other aspects of Speaker Program organization to supply a full-service cutting-edge technology offering.