MSD: Delivering Impactful Content Faster

This presentation details how MSD (Merck Sharp & Dohme), a major pharmaceutical company, successfully leveraged the Veeva platform, specifically Veeva PromoMats, to overhaul and automate its commercial content lifecycle. The central challenge addressed was the inherent conflict between the increasing demand for personalized, timely customer engagement and the slow, often manual, processes required for Medical, Regulatory, and Legal (MRL) review within a highly regulated environment. MSD’s strategy focused on achieving operational speed without compromising stringent regulatory compliance, a critical balance for any life sciences firm.

The core transformation involved shifting the content creation paradigm from bespoke, full-asset development to a standardized, modular approach. By implementing robust template administration and governance within Veeva PromoMats, MSD enabled commercial teams to rapidly assemble new content pieces using pre-approved, compliant content modules. This methodology drastically reduces the volume of content requiring full MRL re-review, accelerating the time-to-market for essential medical information and promotional assets. This automation ensures that content is available for use by customers and field teams much faster, meeting the demands for speed and relevance in modern pharmaceutical engagement.

A significant outcome of this initiative is the mitigation of regulatory risk associated with "unsupported content." By enforcing the use of approved templates and automating the compliance tracking process, MSD ensures that all deployed materials are fully auditable and adhere to strict standards, including those related to inspection readiness and post-estimation requirements. The presentation underscores that successful content automation is not merely a technical implementation but requires deep integration across commercial operations, medical affairs, and IT, ensuring that the entire organization benefits from the streamlined workflows and enhanced administrative control over content assets. Ultimately, MSD’s case study provides a clear blueprint for how life sciences companies can maximize their Veeva investment to drive commercial efficiency and maintain regulatory confidence simultaneously.

Key Takeaways:

• Content Automation is Essential for Speed and Relevance: MSD demonstrated that manual MRL review processes are incompatible with the demand for personalized, timely customer engagement; automation through platforms like Veeva PromoMats is necessary to accelerate asset creation and deployment.
• Shift to Modular Content Strategy: The key to rapid content deployment is moving away from creating unique, full assets for every campaign toward a system where content is built from pre-approved, modular components (templates), significantly reducing MRL review time and increasing content reuse.
• Governance and Template Administration are Critical: Successful automation requires strict administrative control over content templates and modules; robust governance ensures that content assembled from these components remains compliant and minimizes the risk of unsupported or non-compliant usage in the field.
• Integration of Medical Information and Commercial Operations: The case study highlights the need for seamless integration between the availability of accurate medical information and commercial content deployment, ensuring that customer demands for timely data are met efficiently and compliantly.
• Regulatory Compliance is Built-In: Leveraging Veeva PromoMats ensures that compliance requirements (like automated audit trails and inspection readiness) are tracked throughout the content lifecycle, addressing critical GxP and 21 CFR Part 11 concerns inherent to pharmaceutical content.
• Focus on Commercial Operations Optimization: The primary business driver is optimizing commercial operations by increasing the speed and volume of compliant content, directly supporting sales and medical affairs teams in their engagement efforts and maximizing commercial impact.
• Addressing Unsupported Content Risk: By standardizing content creation through approved templates and workflows, companies significantly reduce the risk of field representatives using "unsupported content," which can lead to significant regulatory violations and fines.
• The Importance of Inspection Readiness: Automated content processes must include features that streamline the inspection and post-estimation process, providing clear documentation and comprehensive audit trails for regulatory bodies efficiently.
• Leveraging Templates for Efficiency: Utilizing standardized templates allows administrators to control the structure and compliance elements of content, enabling rapid content assembly while ensuring that the final output adheres to all necessary legal and medical standards.

Tools/Resources Mentioned:

• Veeva PromoMats (The core platform enabling content automation, MRL workflow management, and digital asset distribution).

Key Concepts:

• MRL Review (Medical, Regulatory, Legal Review): The mandatory, multi-stage approval process required for all promotional and medical content in the pharmaceutical industry to ensure accuracy, balance, and regulatory compliance.
• Content Automation: The use of specialized software to streamline and accelerate the creation, review, approval, and distribution of marketing and medical assets, typically relying on modular content and standardized templates.
• Unsupported Content: Any promotional or medical material used by commercial teams that has not undergone the official MRL review and approval process, representing a high regulatory risk.