Overview

Companies

Metrics

Content

Purchase

(The following is excerpted from Chapter 1, Section 3, Supporting CME: Budget Allocation and Spending." The full report contains additional spending and staffing trends, detailed analysis of the recent CME investments and patterns, as well as current structural changes and forward-looking projections of how CME departments will invest in upcoming CME events.)

When companies have a dedicated budget or have received their budget from another function, they must decide how to allocate the money within their group.

Companies that align their CME efforts by brand, therapeutic area or geographic region may divide their budgets equally among the groups or they allocate the funds proportionally to the size of the brands or therapeutic areas.

• By Brand - Brand potential goes a long way in determining which products win funding for CME at some companies. The decision to allocate their budgets is based on where a product sits in the portfolio hierarchy, what the product will bring in as a function of revenue, its bottom-line sales or net profit for the year and if the company or board thinks it will be a big growth driver for the company. Products regarded as growth drivers will garner the most money and support. Product-specific strategies for medical education are mostly built into the overall lifecycle strategy as a part of commercialization.
• By Therapeutic Area - At Company L, CME is a dedicated group but decentralized to the different therapeutic areas. Individual therapeutic area leaders get together to take a look at budget issues, and each therapeutic area leader has control over the grants that apply to their area of expertise. There is no separate grant function for general CME funds to coordinate with; therefore, the CME team is given decision-making power to determine how to utilize its $10 million budget.
• By Region - Company C divides its $18 million budget almost equally across all its therapeutic area directors throughout the nation. The funds can be redistributed within a geographic area if necessary. Brand teams have the luxury of being able to trade money if, for example, there is a program which needs funds allocated for a specific branded product. The therapeutic area teams can have that brand’s individual budget money swapped with general medical education funds to allow for CME opportunities for that brand. If a therapeutic area runs out of money to fund a particular CME event that is strategically in line with the company’s goals, the company has the freedom to move money around to fund CME events that are best for the company and its brands. Company C allocates approximately $500,000 per team, funded by scientific operations budgets.

 

(The following is excerpted from Chapter 4, Section 1, "Supervising Efficient CME Program Management." The full report contains includes detailed criteria that CME events must meet before receiving funding, as well as performance measures and an analysis of pharmaceutical companies’ media mix for delivering medical education.)

CME Support

Pharmaceutical companies support a variety of CME opportunities. They sponsor live events, held at venues nationwide. These events are organized completely by CME providers who select the topics and the speakers. Often companies send representatives to attend live events, but they are not allowed to have commercial presence anywhere at the event. In addition to live events, companies sponsor eCME. This online delivery format offers easily accessible learning materials in the form of webcasts, online forums and online surveys.

Enduring CME delivery methods benefit physicians because they are the best type of CME for the ease of referring back to the information. Companies put out enduring materials such as print and CD-ROMs because physicians appreciate the ability to bring these learning materials into their practices and refer to them when necessary. Although only a small amount of resources are dedicated to enduring CME, the materials are seen as important supplemental pieces of education for physicians.

The majority of companies, 58.8%, increased the number of supported CME events this year as compared to last year. Another 23.5% of surveyed companies plan to sponsor a similar number of events in 2006 as in 2005.

As the CME calendars begin to fill up for 2006, and since the influence of medical education on the industry is not waning, companies are already planning their CME efforts for the coming year. The trend favors strong support for CME in 2007 - 88.3% of companies will either maintain or increase the number of events they support.