Advertise on podcast: Transforming Medical Communications

Medical Affairs teams often design scientific communications from headquarters, assuming that what works in one market will work everywhere. However, a physician in rural India faces entirely different realities than one in Tokyo or Mexico City. In this episode of Transforming Medical Communications, Wesley Portegies is joined by Babak Abbaszadeh, Vice President of Global Medical General Medicine at Amgen, to discuss why global Medical Communications so often miss the mark and what it takes to fix that.

Medical Affairs teams are producing more scientific content than ever, yet clinicians often never see it. In this episode of Transforming Medical Communications, Wesley Portegies is joined by Amit Phull, Chief Clinical Experience Officer at Doximity, to discuss why the “build it and they will come” model no longer works.

SCPs are meant to align teams, shape scientific narratives, and guide communication across the product lifecycle. But in reality, they often end up as static documents that few people actually use. In this episode of Transforming Medical Communications, Wesley Portegies is joined by Enio Polena and Al Balkiewicz of MedComms Experts to share insights on how to make SCPs truly strategic and how to move from simply presenting data to telling scientific stories that clinicians actually remember.

A lack of data isn’t the problem in oncology today. Physicians have access to an incredible volume of clinical trials, treatment pathways, biomarkers, and therapy management considerations. The real challenge is applying that data in the clinic.

The most critical, yet often overlooked, first step in Medical Communications? Truly understanding your audience. In this episode of Transforming Medical Communications, Wesley Portegies is joined by Guy Atchison, Director of Medical Communications Strategy at MedComms Experts, to dive into the process of audience diagnosis. They discuss a structured workshop-driven approach that draws on the frontline knowledge of MSLs, MedInfo teams, and field managers to build detailed audience personas before any content is created.

Diagnosis is often talked about like a formula, but in reality, it’s far messier, more human, and far more dependent on experience, listening, and judgment than most people realize. In this episode of Transforming Medical Communications, Wesley Portegies is joined by Dr. Lisa Sanders, the Medical Director of Yale's Long COVID Multidisciplinary Care Center, the physician behind the Diagnosis column in The New York Times Magazine, and the inspiration behind the TV series House M.D., to share insights on what really drives accurate diagnosis in modern medicine.

How AI is reshaping Medical Communications? In this special compilation episode of Transforming Medical Communications, we walk the floor at the MAPS Americas Annual Meeting in Denver to speak with senior Medical Affairs leaders and share their thoughts on the future of Medical Communication and the right way to integrate AI into MedComms.

Innovation in Medical Communications often hits the same wall: legal and compliance. But what if that wall is just a misunderstood part of the process? In this episode of Transforming Medical Communications, Wesley Portegies is joined by Guy Atchison and Janna Crabb of MedComms Experts to discuss how high-performing teams are successfully navigating compliance while still pushing boundaries.

Conferences are often treated like isolated deadlines: build the booth, deliver the poster, survive the week, move on. But what if congresses were designed as strategic engines for prelaunch readiness, scientific alignment, and long-term HCP engagement? In this episode of Transforming Medical Communications, Wesley Portegies is joined by Mathura Shanmugasundaram, the Director of Global Medical Communications and Medical Affairs for Neuroscience at Takeda, to discuss what a high-impact congress strategy actually looks like.

What is one of the most unprecedented challenges pharma companies face today? Capturing HCP’s attention in under a minute. This challenge has given rise to a critical yet often overlooked strategic tool: the therapeutic area narrative. In this episode of Transforming Medical Communications, Wesley Portegies is joined by the Director of Scientific Communications and Content at Astellas Pharma, Sean Sheffler-Collins, to explore how cohesive therapeutic area narratives can elevate pipeline visibility, foster collaboration, and build trust across stakeholders.

For decades, medical and commercial teams in pharma operated in strict silos. But that model is quietly breaking down. In this episode of Transforming Medical Communications, Wesley Portegies is joined by Lynsey Clarke, President, Client Partnerships North America, to discuss how the relationship between medical and commercial functions has evolved and where the real opportunities for alignment now lie.

Medical Affairs teams face increasing pressure to deliver greater impact with limited resources. As HCPs increasingly consume information through digital channels and abbreviated formats, traditional Medical Communications approaches often fall short. But what if the solution isn’t doing more, but doing less, more strategically? In this episode of Transforming Medical Communications, Wesley Portegies is joined by Georgea Pasedis, Vice President, Medical Affairs at Tarsus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., to explore building effective Medical Communications functions with limited resources.

How do you turn complex clinical data into actionable insight for HCPs? In this episode of Transforming Medical Communications, Wesley Portegies is joined by Daniela van Eickels, Senior Vice President and Head of Medical Affairs at Kyowa Kirin, to share why great data isn’t enough, how pharma can better listen before it talks, and what it takes to truly humanize Medical Communication.

In this Best of the Year episode of Transforming Medical Communications, Wesley Portegies brings insights from some of the leading voices in Medical Communications to unpack the most pressing shifts shaping how HCPs consume scientific information today, featuring Simon Priou of bioMérieux, Kimberly Eskridge-Rose of Travere Therapeutics, Janet Davies of UCB, Erin Reineke of Sanofi, Matthew Krzywosz of Astellas Pharma, and Nishal Patel of Pfizer.

In Medical Communications, we’ve long operated under the assumption that scientific data naturally trickles down from academic thought leaders to the wider HCP community. However, this traditional model is failing to meet the needs of modern healthcare practitioners. In this episode of Transforming Medical Communications, Wesley Portegies is joined by Director of Worldwide Medical Oncology in Medical Communications at Bristol Myers Squibb , Raj Patel, to discuss innovative strategies for reaching community oncologists with scientific data through non-traditional channels and digital platforms. We’ll talk about: How to leverage non-peer-reviewed platforms to exponentially increase scientific content reach Why community HCPs consume scientific content differently from academic physicians A framework to leverage medical news websites while maintaining compliance How to optimize the journal selection strategy to increase content accessibility for community physicians The three-step approach to identify and engage with platforms where community HCPs already consume content