Our client, based in North America and unfamiliar with the EU, asked Translucency to recommend key opinion leaders in the major markets of the EU with whom they should work in order to optimise their product’s situation at launch.
Translucency carried out a comprehensive assessment of the influence of a short list of clinicians known to be working in the field, using its novel KOL® analysis. In addition to the influence of these key opinion leaders on clinical colleagues, this analysis quantifies their influence on formal reimbursement bodies, payor committees etc. Translucency also established whether the KOLs had connections with our client’s competitors, whether they were involved in trials which might create pressures on their time or conflicts of interest, and their track record in supporting clients’ commercial objectives. Finally, we took account of the influence of the centre in which the key opinion leader worked.
Through the assessment, we identified and, where possible, quantified advantages of working with a long short-list of key opinion leaders. We made recommendations to our client based on the assessment.
The client used our recommendations to target key opinion leaders, choosing two in each major market. The client found the recommendations useful in order to establish their presence in the EU, and considered that the key opinion leaders identified had proved very useful in promoting their plans for marketing the product.