Utilizing Disruptive Innovation in Medical Affairs

“Leaders don’t look backwards to condemn what has already been done; they look forward to create a better future” – Mark Cuban

As MSLs, we navigate a fine balance between adhering to proven, long-standing processes and innovating to keep pace with today’s evolving technological and healthcare landscape. In this article, I aim to help you understand how being a disruptive innovator can lead to impactful changes in your team’s future success.

To become a disruptor, you must first know what a disruptor is. There are many different definitions; however, the one I like best is a broad amalgamation of several. See below:

Disruptor: A person or company that challenges the status quo and creates new ways of doing things.

One of the most famous and outspoken leaders in the disruptive innovation space is Mark Cuban. Cuban’s new company, Cost Plus Drugs, aims to be a disruptor in the healthcare PBM space with a goal of ensuring all Americans have access to safe and affordable medications through transparent pricing for prescription drugs. This is one example of how a company can create disruption in the prescription drug space by deviating from the established methods of drug pricing, which are kept behind a shrouded veil.

But how can you, as an MSL or other medical affairs professional, do the same on a smaller scale? Let’s discuss.

In an article published in the California Management Review, authors Charles O’Reilly and Andrew J.M. Binns defines the three stages of disruptive innovation as: idea generation (to generate new business ideas), incubation (to validate those ideas), and scaling (to reallocate resources to grow the new disruptive item). Their article goes into further detail by showing how the three stages have been utilized in the technology and business sectors by companies to cause disruptive innovation.

I’d like to walk you through a case study that examines each stage of disruptive innovation, using a personal example of how I implemented it as an MSL.

Stage 1: Idea Generation

As a new MSL getting up to speed on my team’s KOL list, engagement plans, and tactics, I quickly noticed an issue: gynecologic (GYN) oncology pharmacists’ KOLs were nowhere to be found in our engagement plan. As a pharmacist myself, I understood the important role GYN oncology pharmacists play in treatment decision-making and patient care. As such, I notified my medical leaders of the gap in hopes of a concerted effort to engage with these KOLs, which was well received.

However, when I began my new project to find and engage GYN oncology pharmacists, I realized that there were very few KOLs who could be found through traditional processes. When I began engaging with the few I could find, I was further surprised to realize that most of them did not have a network of GYN oncology pharmacist peers they could refer me to or leverage for their own discussions on best practices.

I connected the small group of GYN oncology pharmacists with one another and facilitated a discussion on the scarcity of recognized pharmacists in the GYN oncology community. What we found is that there was no organization, group, or home for GYN oncology pharmacists to connect with one another. From there, the idea was generated: we needed to create a home where new and existing GYN oncology pharmacists could connect and collaborate.

Stage 2: Incubation

In a short time, collaborating with a small group of identified GYN oncology pharmacists, we formed a working group, creating a dedicated space for the community. Within the working group, the GYN oncology pharmacists were already beginning to collaborate and discuss their practices, recent data updates, side effect management, and potential collaborative research ideas.

We also worked to determine the best way to establish a permanent home for the growing community of identified GYN oncology pharmacists. Eventually, we developed a plan to partner with the Hematology/Oncology Pharmacist Association (HOPA) to create a new Special Interest Group (SIG) tailored toward pharmacists working within GYN oncology.

In January 2024, the new GYN Oncology SIG went live with approximately fifteen initial members collected by our small working group.

Stage 3: Scaling

After the initiation of the new SIG, we began to accumulate new members rapidly. It turns out there were numerous GYN oncology pharmacists across the country looking for their community. Three months into the year, we had nearly fifty members.

Today, the GYN Oncology SIG has over eighty members from clinical and industry backgrounds, with a dedicated leadership team. The SIG holds quarterly meetings to discuss new data and updates within the disease space, is working on collaborative research projects, and has a dedicated mentorship program for new GYN oncology pharmacists.

In the example above, I identified a gap that led to the ideation of a new opportunity for GYN oncology pharmacist collaboration. From there, I incubated the idea by bringing the small working group of pharmacists together to begin engaging with one another. Finally, we used the partnership with HOPA and the creation of the GYN Oncology SIG to scale the group in both size and collaboration within the community.

Now you may be wondering how this project was beneficial to me in my role as an MSL. To that, I would reply with the following list of value-added benefits:

• I identified and established relationships with many GYN pharmacy leaders from sites across the U.S., helping deepen our understanding of how these cancers are managed by multidisciplinary teams.
• I participated in and observed timely discussions surrounding treatment landscapes and new data.
• I gathered insights from the SIG surrounding recent data releases (internal and competitive), side effect management of agents in the space, educational tools and resources they preferred for different agents, and more.

In conclusion, I encourage you to look for the gaps or opportunities for improvement in your own role. Is there a problem or process where you could challenge the status quo and create a new way of doing something? If so, utilize the three stages of disruptive innovation (Idea Generation, Incubation, and Scaling) and become a disruptive innovator, leading your team to new successes-just like I have!

References:

1. O’Reilly C, Binns AJM. Three stages of disruptive innovation: Idea generation, Incubation, and scaling. Calif. Manag. Rev. 2019;61(3):49-71.
2. Mark Cuban. Our Mission. Cost Plus Drugs Company. Accessed January 29, 2025. https://www.costplusdrugs.com/mission/

 

About the author:

Andrew Lanier, PharmD

Andrew Lanier is an oncology pharmacist and pharmaceutical industry expert with experience in a number of clinical and medical affairs-based roles, including 3 years as an oncology medical science liaison and a 2024 finalist for the MSL Rookie of the Year award.

He has a service-driven passion to help underserved oncology patient populations in order to ensure all patients have safe and effective therapies for their cancer. He currently works as a Hematology MSL within Takeda Oncology, covering the Great Plains region, and resides in Dallas, Texas.

He enjoys mentoring pharmacy students and other pharmacists as they navigate the uphill battle of the pharmaceutical industry job market. He additionally enjoys educating pharmacy students on his path and roles within the industry to help them determine if a role in the industry is right for them and/or how to create a plan to achieve their dreams.