Communication: A Challenge in the Clinical Trials Space

The Pledge: To work with Verily Life Sciences, a provider of innovative healthcare solutions, in partnership with Otsuka Pharmaceuticals on developing internal communications strategies. The scope of my work involved 1) evaluating current collaborative efforts under Project Baseline between Verily and Otsuka over the last 2 years, 2) establishing pain-points hindering future work within the partnership, and 3) improving engagement across intra-department personnel in the effort to scale-up the implementation of Verily’s virtual clinical trial platforms. Fieldwork: Conducting a series of stakeholder interviews across Otsuka and Verily in order to better understand perceptions around the joint-collaboration—Project Baseline— focusing on what has been done, what can be done better, and how I can best communicate Project Baseline’s advantages to Otsuka employees and clinical trial site managers who are not using Verily’s virtual trial software. The Outcome: From interview data, I determined that a two-pronged communications strategy would be necessary to achieve the above-stated goals: one targeted internally at personnel within both Otsuka and Verily, and 2) one targeted outwardly at clinical trial site managers. I proposed and developed a shared newsletter—Otsuka’s first—in order to create a sense of unity between the two partners and reduce identified levels of ambiguity between employees. This was done through editorial features on current projects and spotlight interviews with key stakeholders in both Otsuka and Verily. Emphasis was placed on highlighting Verily’s continued value to Otsuka’s clinical trial segment, by the consolidation of vendors, faster execution of clinical trials, and augmentation of data through platforms instead of direct capture through patients and/or doctors ( vulnerable to human error). Additionally, a podcast series was launched facing clinical trial site managers in order to destigmatize assumptions around virtual trials (an identified pain-point) by harnessing the trust of expert opinions and increasing transparency through direct engagement with top Otsuka and Verily stakeholders.