Subject: Dr. Elizabeth Holt discusses her visionary leadership in medical affairs, highlighting innovative approaches to KOL engagement, evidence generation, and clinical trial design that have revolutionized patient care at LifeScan Global Corporation.
While Medical Affairs has traditionally been viewed as a conduit for bringing external scientific information into a company and dispersing company-generated scientific data externally, there is much more value that an innovative Medical Affairs leader can bring to the table. At LifeScan, I envisioned a broader role for my Medical and Clinical Affairs team and executed on that vision to achieve notable outcomes.
After nearly 3 decades practicing clinical Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism full-time, my patient care and advocacy bone fides are well established. Healthcare professional key opinion leaders (KOLs) with whom I interact know that I am a true peer, understanding their perspectives and their patients’ concerns. In fact, I know many of them (or they know of me) from my activities while in private practice, including serving on the Board of Directors for the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology (AACE) and many AACE committees, including as Chair or Co-Chair. My forthright, open, and honest approach to KOL interactions builds on this base of trust and partnership, fostering strong collaborations.
During a time of restructuring at LifeScan, with a limited budget for research, my team innovated with studies utilizing our extensive database of real-world data from people with diabetes who use our digital ecosystem in their diabetes management. We have written, presented, and published a steady cadence of scientific papers, abstracts, and posters based on real-world evidence at minimal cost to the company. By partnering with our cross-functional colleagues, we generated claims that the Sales and Marketing teams used to maintain or gain access to payors and tenders globally, sustaining, and even growing, our market share.
The nearly overnight adoption of virtual meetings inspired my team to pioneer a cutting-edge clinical trial design with all study activities being 100% online, from recruitment to data collection to final reports. In fact, we effectively worked with four of our industry partners in this multi-arm study. My team successfully completed the study and we authored a manuscript that we have submitted for publication.
My true passion continues to be to improve lives for people living with diabetes and for their healthcare professionals. Therefore, I succeeded in advocating for enhancements to LifeScan’s digital ecosystem to improve data management. I am now spearheading a campaign to raise awareness of this initiative. My efforts are centered around the Ambulatory Glucose Profile Report: Blood Glucose Monitoring (AGP Report: BGM), a one-page report that summarizes and displays clinically important glucose metrics for patients and healthcare professionals, and Structured Monitoring, whereby blood glucose readings are checked on a schedule based on diabetes type, diabetes treatment plan, and achievement of glucose goals. By more effectively checking blood glucose readings and more efficiently reporting them, medical outcomes might be improved for people living with diabetes and clinician workload decreased for their healthcare professionals. I planned this campaign to be multi-faceted. Components include: aligning with KOLs on the language used in the AGP Report: BGM; publication of an article in a prestigious diabetes journal strategically targeted to primary care healthcare professionals that provides an overview of the AGP Report: BGM, an explanation of how to quickly interpret it, and 2 case studies; adding the AGP Report: BGM to LifeScan’s OneTouch® digital ecosystem; and designing templates for Structured Monitoring to be added to the OneTouch.com websites for patients and healthcare professionals for downloading as a guide or to print and fill out as a physical logbook. Additional efforts include increasing awareness of these assets via our own marketing efforts and by partnering with other organizations and patient advocacy groups.
Despite adversities and difficult times, my team and I continue to have successes that enhance the reputation and increase the business of our company. My focus on our customers — the people living with diabetes and the healthcare professionals caring for them – ensures that our efforts align with the vision and mission of LifeScan. Medical Affairs is a vibrant profession and I enjoy meeting its challenges.
