Interview – Antonio Tataranni, Sanofi – Autumn Medical Affairs Leaders Forum 2014
By NextLevel Life Sciences - June 23, 2014

Leading up to NextLevel Pharma’s Autumn Medical Affairs Leaders Forum, we are conducting email interviews with selected members of our prestigious speaker panel to learn more about their thoughts on this vital issue.

*Opinions below are those only of the individual and do not reflect upon corporate strategy or positioning.

For more information regarding NextLevel Pharma’s Autumn Medical Affairs Leaders Forumclick here.

Antonio Tataranni, Vice President, Global Medical Affairs, Sanofi, France

NLP: What do you think makes the current medical affairs environment so challenging for pharmaceutical & medical device companies?

Antonio Tataranni: A shaper focus on scientific as well as clinical understanding of disease, increased risk management & compliance demands, a need for continuous Benefit/Risk assessment even for established products, an ever more difficult market access environment.

NLP: Which trends have you seen on the ways in which the pharma & biotech sector approach KOLS and stakeholders over the past 5 years?

Antonio Tataranni: Broad ranges of stakeholders, emergence of new types of data, more integrated care demand, increased expectation to perform as peers with better digital technology.

NLP: How much do you think the medical affairs & MSL roles in the pharma & device sector are increasing their influence?

Antonio Tataranni: Very significantly as the industry is increasingly pushed to ‘medicalize’ interactions with its external stakeholders. However, this can only happen successfully if medical affairs is internally integrated in what I call a healthy 3M ecosystem (Medico-Marketing-Market access).

NLP: What’s the best thing for you about working in medical affairs right now?

Antonio Tataranni: In MA, the journey is the destination. This is a highly evolutive medical profession which needs to constantly reinvent itself. I like that. Personally, I also feel very privileged to share with my colleagues in R&D and Commercial the daily commitment to find new ways of preventing, treating and curing diseases thus bringing new hope to patients and their families.

NLP: Why is this Autumn Medical Affairs Leaders Forum event a good idea for people to attend in your eyes?

Antonio Tataranni: Because as MA professionals we share many similar challenges and opportunities across the life science industry. What a great occasion to address some of these in a pre-competitive setting.