Med/pharma meeting planners say attendees are pleased in-person meetings are back, allowing for more networking and camaraderie. Courtesy of Ashley Williams

The recent COVID-19 pandemic altered the meetings and events landscape in myriad ways, across all industries. And this is especially true within the medical meetings arena, where pharmaceutical, medical and health care professionals were forced to chart a new course for meetings and events, both big and small.

As Cathy Mariano, CMP, HMCC, head of the Pharmaceutical & Medical Client Group at Bishop-McCann, explains, in the past, med/pharma meetings — particularly internal meetings — were often focused around the company itself and how they could do things better and connect more cohesively as a team, thus assuming that work would benefit the patient. Also, the meetings were held because that’s what had just “always been done.”

“However, in more recent years, there is a more strategic discussion based around what is best for the patient, and thus, this is the reason for the meeting. What can we do better to ensure the patient has a better experience?” Mariano asks.

Today, there are more questions around meeting in general: Why are we doing this meeting? What is the outcome we are looking for? What is needed right now for patients and how do we solve this? “This holds true for medical meetings as well. Who is being invited and why? Do we have the right people at the table for today’s issues? Are we using the time wisely to ensure we set our medical community up for success in delivering for the patients?” Mariano says. “There is an even more concerted effort to have opportunities to listen to the medical community as they are the ‘boots on the ground’ and quickly find solutions. Of course, medical meetings are regulated and reported, thus a large focus is in this area, as well.”

Following the pandemic, and from an international perspective, clients have exerted a lot more caution in deciding when to return to planning in-person meetings, says Ella Darby, senior manager, event experience, Meetings & Incentives Worldwide. “For the U.S., pharma meetings returned in-person a lot quicker, but with so many different country rules for how COVID-19 was handled in Europe and beyond, that’s a lot to navigate when trying to plan a meeting with global attendees.”

Ashley Williams, global vice president and general manager, Life Sciences Center of Excellence at BCD Meetings & Events, agrees that the pandemic clearly had a significant impact on med/pharma meetings over the last few years, although BCD’s life sciences clients were among the first to return to live meetings.

“In fact, many didn’t stop doing live meetings during the pandemic due to the urgency associated with the meetings required to bring new therapies to market,” Williams says. “Patients can’t wait, so our clients found ways to continue to meet, whether live or virtual. Post pandemic, as our clients continue to return to live meetings, we are seeing a global trend toward smaller [less than 20 people] meetings with larger meetings continuing on in virtual or hybrid formats in some cases.”

The majority of BCD’s meetings — as much as 80% — are taking place in person as clients and health-care practitioners have been eager to return to face-to-face engagements, and the opportunities for networking and informal peer-to-peer connections are difficult to replicate as effectively in virtual and hybrid meetings.

“While the number — as a percentage of total meetings — of virtual meetings peaked during the height of the pandemic, virtual meetings continue to be about 15% of our meeting mix,” Williams says. “At its peak, hybrid meetings were never more than 7% of our meeting mix, and we see that falling as the return to live continues to increase.”

Meetings Style & Approach

Mariano and her team at Bishop-McCann are seeing a large uptick in in-person meetings after the past couple of years. While there are some virtual meetings, there are very few hybrid meetings. And the reason is simple: The power of in-person meetings has yet to be replicated in any other way.

“Allowing attendees the chance to physically have discussions within and away from the main content is such a strong way to collaborate,” Mariano says. “However, there is room for virtual meetings, and we are finding those to be more in the medical meeting arena. Virtual meetings have opened the door to include many health-care professionals, who are otherwise too busy to travel to and from an in-person meeting. Health-care professionals are able to concentrate in the meeting, provide good insight and return to work immediately. It is a win for both the health-care professionals and pharma client team.”

Virtual meetings have also proven to be a valuable option for internal meetings in some ways. Sessions that are more training oriented or content heavy have shifted into multiple smaller sessions to be done virtually throughout the year, versus adding into agendas of live meetings. “With a greater focus on attendee engagements during live meetings, there are more opportunities to build team morale and associate engagements for companies,” Mariano says.

In her experience, Darby says clients are being challenged by their leadership to consider several things, including: 1) the need for the meeting; 2) the outcome they are seeking for the purpose of the meeting; 3) the available budget and; 4) who needs to attend.

“They can then make the correct business decision as they are not solely limited to in-person meetings. Having the capability for virtual or hybrid options has really added more scope to meeting planning,” Darby says. “The additional benefit for hybrid/virtual attendees at an in-person pharma meeting includes the ability to have guest speakers join remotely should their schedule be limited for travel, but they are able to spend an hour on a web call. The same applies to attendees who are not able to travel for a variety of reasons; they, too, can join remotely and still provide and receive value through their attendance.”

Successful Elements

In 2021, Bishop-McCann was engaged with a client for five separate business unit/therapeutic area meetings. They had sourced hotels and had started the planning process for each business unit. Due to a surge with COVID cases, the team had to make a shift from five business unit meetings to 72 regional sites with a six-week lead time.

“Our team had to source locations and actively shifted gear to plan meetings across a wide range of destinations across the country,” Mariano says. “The biggest challenge was managing the constantly changing COVID regulations in our destinations and the internal guidelines from our client’s organization. The target was constantly moving and impacted how we approached the meeting, agenda development and all logistics related to attendee travel and communication.”

The Bishop-McCann team maintained constant communication with the hotel, local DMC and monitored COVID cases stats to be able to make appropriate recommendations to their clients on changes that needed to be made for the program. “This also resulted in many last-minute changes and pivots for us to edit the program to make the experience the best possible,” Mariano says. They also developed a comprehensive communication plan to ensure that there were consistent touch points with the attendees, sharing relevant program/travel information and all COVID guidelines involved so that everyone would feel safe and confident traveling to the program.

The team also integrated the meeting theme in every single touch point for the attendees. This included the digital components such as registration website, attendee communications and mobile app, pre-trip mailers, on-site materials such as wristbands and name badges, awards night décor, branding on-site such as directional signs, etc. and post-event surveys across all 72 locations.

“It was amazing to hear the positive feedback and appreciation from all the attendees seeing each other again after not attending any live events in nearly two years,” Mariano says. “We recognized the client’s need to have a live meeting in an unprecedented time, and made it all happen with a great outcome at the end.”

From Mariano’s perspective successful elements of a med/pharma meeting include:

• A smooth registration process, including guest room and air travel management.
• Meeting content that applies to attendee deliverables — Why am I here, and how can I put what I learn to use? — and connect to the patient.
• Giving attendees time to take a breath and catch up on work.
• Giving attendees the opportunity to connect with each other socially to strengthen team synergy as well as collaboratively to solve today’s issues together.
• Determining a date for the meeting earlier on and sending a “save the date” to attendees has become more critical. Everyone is juggling more intense work and travel schedules.
• Sourcing venues early. The compression in the meetings industry continues to increase, and companies are competing over the same dates and preferred cities, which can make it challenging to identify viable options.
• Post meeting summaries and debriefs, which are critical to map out as part of the overall event planning process. Use the available technologies to capture attendee experience, satisfaction levels and collaborative feedback across all vendor partners is a step not to be missed. Planners are always learning and can always improve for the next one.
• A meeting app, which has become a great tool and expectation from attendees. Meeting attendees want to know what to expect and be able to have information readily available to them. A comprehensive communication tool to access most up-to-date meeting information, engagement opportunities and the ability to personalize their experience/agenda have become a common expectation for meetings.
• The chance for attendees to have more input in a meeting’s agenda. Rather than a small group of individuals putting all content inclusions together, it is good to use moments of engagements within company communications or post-event surveys to find out what attendees want to see next.
• Engagement during meetings to keep the audience focused is important to consider. Many times, limiting topics to four or five things is helpful to maximize retention. Make sessions as interactive as possible.

Darby also advises that when the meetings involve health-care professionals, this is a valuable time for the pharmaceutical company to interact with the health-care professionals for feedback, advice, and in relation to investigator meetings, it offers very important training opportunities. “I believe that location also plays a very important role in the success of a meeting — any meeting, not just pharma,” Darby says. “Using major airport hubs for flight itineraries and cities that are easily accessible stops attendees being exhausted before the meeting even starts.”

Interactive elements of a meeting are also important to attendees. Gone are the days when attendees sit for hours just listening. “The progression in technology development is making meetings more engaging for the audience, the use of audience-response systems, polling and other features within a mobile app allows for interactivity,” Darby says. “The use of tablets for each attendee has become popular over the years, as attendees can follow the slide presentation themselves, make notes and ask questions to the speaker.”

Last fall, Darby managed an investigator meeting in Madrid for 75 attendees. It was the first international investigator meeting for her client since the pandemic hit, and she said they could feel the elation of all the attendees from being in-person, interacting with the clients and generally being able to receive in-person training.

“Talking to attendees during the week, the messaging was the same — how wonderful it is to be together again in a live setting. Virtual meetings served their purpose well, but you cannot replace the human interaction element of meetings,” Darby says.

It was also the first time Meetings & Incentives Worldwide used a mobile app on-site for an investigator meeting, and the feedback the team received was hugely positive and very valuable to the client. “The attendees felt a lot more engaged and informed before they traveled to Madrid, and whilst on-site, enjoyed the interactivity they could experience during the week,” Darby says.

It is also important that med/pharma meeting planners ensure they are working with stakeholders/meeting owners to incorporate attendee engagement throughout the meeting, Williams says. “Opportunities to interact with speakers, with the content and with each other are essential to the success of your meetings,” Williams says. “Educate and consult with your stakeholders about the options for accomplishing engagement objectives.”

Jacqueline Beaulieu, has worked across all sectors of the trade show, events and association industry. Currently with Poretta & Orr Exhibits & Events as the director of strategic marketing & client engagement, she spent nearly 16 years with the Healthcare Convention & Exhibitors Association (HCEA), whose mission is to educate those involved in health care convention, exhibit and event marketing.

Beaulieu notes that quality content remains top of mind for health-care professionals and attendees. Also allowing for ways to have meaningful dialogue and opportunities to meet personally is important, in addition to “planning a meeting so that the quality of learning and ability to interact is key,” she says. “That is why face-to-face is so effective — it allows for those impromptu exchanges of information, questions and relationship-building moments.”

Beaulieu adds, “Health-care professionals also appreciate the ability to reference materials electronically after the meeting. Electronic handouts that can be shared with colleagues after the meeting is also key to adding value to the experience. Often, we are all challenged with bringing information back to share with our teams and health-care professionals are no different. So, anything we can do to make it easier for them in that regard will be memorable.”

One more recent meeting Poretta & Orr orchestrated incorporated three crucial elements that Beaulieu thinks are vital to consider with all meetings. “This pharma company recruited a key opinion leader to speak on a topic that was hot at the time, allowed for questions and discussion and even incorporated a photo opportunity,” she says. “One of the reasons this meeting was a smashing success was because the planners began planning the meeting with ample time. Typically, gone are the days that you can pull off an event in a short amount of time, so timing is a key factor for success.”

A Modified Future

Meeting and event planning experts within the med/pharma and medical industries agree that med/pharma meetings will continue to evolve. As Mariano explains, there are so many moving factors that contribute to the med/pharma industry that affect the production of meetings. Patients, health-care professionals, internal issues, governmental regulations and the economy are large contributors to this evolution.

“Some of the evolution will be forced by these factors. Patients will continue to be a main focus,” Mariano says. “How often, where and the size of meetings will continue to shift in the coming years. A few other factors include getting down to basics, fewer extras, including food and beverage waste, gifts, handouts and investing in strong, appealing meeting elements will be a focus.”

Darby adds that engagement is one of the main keys to a successful med/pharma meeting. Regardless of whether the meeting is in-person, hybrid or virtual, the agenda planning is important to ensure that all the attendees have a list of takeaways at the end of the meeting to feel their attendance had either provided value or they received value.

“I feel clients will take more time to consider the agenda, perhaps engage their content vendors earlier in the agenda-planning process in order to ensure that however an attendee is joining the meeting, they are fully engaged,” Darby says. “I also believe that virtual and hybrid will be with us to stay. While yearly budgets are being considered, if an in-person meeting stretches resources, then virtual or hybrid attendance will certainly lower the financial commitment, so I think we will see a variety of meeting types for a long time to come.”

And Williams thinks we will continue to see improvements in technology that enable attendee engagement before, during and after the meetings — particularly as it relates to leveraging and better integrating meeting technologies with existing technologies clients use today to communicate and interact with health-care professionals and patients.

“We will likely see virtual meetings and attendee engagement platforms continue to improve as platforms evolve to meet demands to replicate some of the networking experiences which are, right now, best accomplished at in-person events,” Williams says.

Beaulieu adds that compliance and regulatory issues will continue to change and evolve over time, and increase. This will require med/pharma meeting planners to continue to stay on their “A game” and to partner with those who understand the unique needs of health care meeting planners and the industry.

“We are a lucky group of individuals who work in this field, and we can help ourselves by developing a network of dependable colleagues, industry peers and resources to rely on and to discuss new regulations and challenges,” Beaulieu says. “This will always be key to our success.” C&IT