This MedComms day 2024 we asked Nicole Scullion, Senior Medical Writer here at Virgo Health to tell us about her journey into the world of Medical Communications and what a typical day might look like.  

Describe your role to a friend… 

Medical writing involves working with pharmaceutical companies to help educate doctors, patients and the public on their products in a number of different ways. For example, through the creation of educational materials or at events such as congresses. While you are often sitting at a desk researching or developing content, you also have the opportunity to travel.  

What area of MedComms do you work in? 

In my current role I cover three therapy areas: surgical imaging, immunosuppression post-organ transplantation and oncology (neuroendocrine cancer). At Virgo, I have also had the opportunity to explore additional areas such as women’s health and nephrology. Within these therapy areas, my work spans various medical education projects, including advisory boards, symposia and the development of educational materials such as core decks, publication summaries and infographics.  

A typical day at work? 

My daily routine varies based on client needs and upcoming events. As a mostly remote worker, I connect with internal teams, have client calls and create or edit materials from home. Currently, I am focusing on finalising content for a symposium taking place in the Netherlands this week.  

When I visit the office, this provides an opportunity to attend training, brainstorms and team meetings in person. It also gives me the chance to catch up with team members that I may not interact with daily. 

What 3 skills are most important to your role: 

• Attention to detail 

• Communicating confidently with your team and with clients 

• Being able to interpret data in a creative way 

How would you describe MedComms? 

MedComms is a very dynamic and varied industry which serves as the link between the scientific community, pharmaceutical companies, healthcare professionals, patients and the wider public. While translating complex scientific information, MedComms allows for creativity, collaboration and strategic thinking. 

How did you land on a med comms career? 

I attended the University of Liverpool to study a BSc (Hons) degree in Biological Sciences, followed by an MRes degree in Biomedical Sciences and Translational Medicine, with a focus on oncology and uveal melanoma. After completing my master’s degree in 2019, I discovered medical writing while searching ‘jobs for biology graduates’. My journey began over four years ago as a Trainee Medical Writer, soon progressing to Associate Medical Writer, Medical Writer and joining Virgo in August 2023 as Senior Medical Writer. 

What advice would you give people interested in MedComms careers? 

For anyone starting a career in MedComms, I would recommend networking and connecting with professionals already working in MedComms to seek advice and learn about their experiences. LinkedIn is a great tool for this as you can connect with so many people in the industry (including recruiters) and find out about MedComms specific events.  

I would also advise preparing as much as you can for the application process as this typically involves a few interview rounds in addition to a writing test.  

My final piece of advice is that starting a new career can be challenging, so give yourself grace during this time. It may be daunting at first and it may not ‘click’ immediately, but as you settle in, you will find your rhythm and purpose.   

Lastly, tell us something surprising about yourself! 

I am not an outdoorsy person at all, however, I forced myself to climb Mount Kilimanjaro!   

Data Comms sits at the core of our industry, so it’s time to inspire more communicators about the dynamic role it plays in healthcare communications

By Lizzie Wright, Executive Director and Laura Strain, Executive Vice President.

Data sits at the heart of our work in pharmaceutical communications, flowing into and influencing everything that we do on a daily basis. It is critical that to run a successful campaign, we understand the science and can effectively interpret the data so that it resonates with the different audiences we work with.  

Yet data communications itself – the communication of scientific data from clinical trials and real-world studies – seems to have a bit of a bad rep. We ran a small survey of pharma PR pros¹ at mixed levels and experience and found words such as “dry”, “formulaic” and “difficult” came to mind, with most people identifying data comms only as writing a press release and a Q&A for clinical trial data. 40% stated they were not confident in data comms and 11% stated they would avoid it at all costs!  

Part of the reason why we see such a variety of perspectives on data comms is that we cannot communicate about a lot of the work we do because of strict regulations and confidentiality. Therefore, it’s hard to show the power of the specialism and break down the barriers and perceptions of data communications.  

In communicating data, we get to be at the heart of change – changing treatment decisions, changing the result for patients to changing stock prices. Granted, we are a small part of this change, but we are part of it.  

Communicating data goes way beyond creating press releases and Q&As. Truly understanding the data allows us to propose more robust communication programmes to our clients. The science impacts high-level strategic scenario planning workshops all the way through to attending congresses and how we speak with media.  

In understanding the power of data and learning to critically assess it, pharma comms pros can contribute to high-level strategic discussions with senior clients and attend scientific meetings around the world to witness first-hand the impact and response to some of the most ground-breaking medical and scientific research being conducted across the world today. 

While behaviour change or disease awareness campaigns tend to inspire more communicators in healthcare, if you have a passion for the science and research it could be that you need to rethink how you perceive data comms.  

We’ve been working in data comms for over 10 years each and have been to congresses all around the world, from Orlando to Amsterdam and New Orleans to Paris. Data comms is truly at the centre of cutting-edge science and innovation, helping scientists communicate their success and continue the great progress they’re making, and after all, that enables all the rest of the pharma communications to happen. 

[1] N=28. Conducted on LinkedIn in November 2023

• Lizzie Wright completed a PhD in cardiovascular medicine before starting in pharma PR and has worked at agencies in the UK and US for 10 years. She is currently a Executive Director at Virgo Health.
• Laura Strain completed a PhD in genetic predictors of diabetes and obesity, starting her career as a medical writer before transitioning into pharma comms. She has 15 years of agency experience, and is currently Executive Vice President at Virgo Health.

We work in a female dominated industry, which in my twenty plus years in PR, has always been the case.  But we don’t have the same proportionate number of woman in leadership positions across the industry and I have often asked myself why. What happens to cause this in the employee experience and life cycle somewhere between entering the PR industry and retirement? My conclusions aren’t rocket science, but the reality is far more complex than it might at first appear because there are historical barriers in the way of female progression, from society’s expectations of how to act and behave, to stereotyping and biases. Over time women have learned to conform and mask parts of themselves to fit in with a workplace historically designed by and for men. To survive, let alone progress, women have often needed to overcome, ignore, or accept ways of working that are not inclusive to them or designed with their needs or success in mind.

Both in my role as a leader in the UK business, but also as a parent to 3 school aged daughters, I am passionate about women not just in the workplace but in all aspects of life, having an authentic equal playing field. This means being confident and comfortable to be themselves, to ask for help and support without fear of judgement and not having to mask their true self to thrive.  For this to happen, we need to think, act and talk truly inclusively, in all walks of life allowing people to be themselves, to ask for what they need because to treat people fairly and equally takes time, effort, intention and empathy. It’s a world where differences are celebrated and not just tolerated or worse.

In the UK office, we have put a lot of thinking, time and intention behind our people, learning and DEI work, words and actions. This includes enhancing the terms (including remuneration) for our gender-neutral Family Friendly Leave and focusing on the time re-onboarding back into the business for those returning from family leave. We also recently introduced a range of new policies to support employees at critical life moments, including menopause, fertility, and menstruation. We have partnered with a women’s health charity, The Eve Appeal, to raise awareness of gynaecological cancers. In the year in which our Global DEI theme is focusing on Mental Wellbeing and Neuro-Diversity, in the UK we are deepening our longstanding work around wellbeing in the workplace through our ‘How Are You’ approach to open up conversations, mental health talks and a planned programme of ‘movement’, for 2024.  We believe that these programmes and actions help us to better understand how to support and encourage everyone to feel empowered to overcome the hurdles in their way and to proudly be themselves, asking for what they need to succeed. 

Making sure that everyone, including women at all levels and stages of their life and careers, are seen and heard, and we are doing all we can to understand them and their needs, whether that be through wellbeing, career progression, neuro diversity, life as working parent – whatever that might be. This is our goal. 

-Rebecca Hall, Group HR Director

By Paul Andrews, Executive Director, Creative, Design & Production

Design plays a vital role in healthcare communications, helping translate complex scientific data into digestible content and visually exciting campaigns for wide-ranging audiences.

We caught up with the head of Virgo’s global creative design studio, Paul Andrews, who leads The Pharmacy, our multi-disciplinary team of 13 designers who are passionate about delivering accessible, creative and innovative healthcare design.

What areas of healthcare are most exciting creatively?  

All areas have potential for creativity, but they all manifest differently, I think congress booths have the most scope for introducing new and emerging technology into the experience, we are always exploring at how we can make content more engaging in this setting. Data visualization is an area healthcare should be better at, with the amount of data that’s presented we should be setting the bar of what is possible, telling the scientific or human story through the data and contextualizing it for the audience.

How can design make healthcare more inclusive and accessible?

People always assume design is making something look visually appealing but that’s the end product, the process to get there is more problem-solving and inclusivity and accessibility is a key part of that: How do we take this content and make it easy to digest? How do we make sure the audience is represented? What’s the messaging hierarchy and how do package that information in an aesthetic way to attract viewers and maximise usability?

Intended audience is always a consideration, regardless if it’s healthcare or not. If we are setting type on a patient piece of content for the elderly or visually impaired we take that into account for sizing and legibility of the text or if we are creating an animation with text – are all the viewers reading this in their native language, if not we slow it down to give people more time. If we are using imagery, is it representative of the audience we are talking to.

How will AI affect design?

Will it replace illustrators, designers and animators? Probably not, it’s just going to become another tool we all lean on to get the best results. AI will certainly streamline processes, speed things up and spark creativity – there are platforms where you can automatically generate 50 versions of artwork for different media, it’s not always perfect and needs a human eye to tidy-up but that kind of automation is getting better and better.

Tools like generative fill in Adobe Photoshop is a game changer, Mid-Journey or Firefly are great for instantly bringing concepts to life, which is perfect for showcasing ideas to clients or suggesting visual routes you might not have considered. We will certainly see more content creators specializing in AI generated content as there is an art to getting it right, a mix of creative intention, programming and knowing the right prompts to create your vision.

What are the challenges of designing for healthcare?

One of the main hurdles in healthcare design is making sure you are compliant with local guidelines, such as the ABPI in the UK. As these vary from market to market, we all need to be aware of the requirements. Another common issue is finding images. Stock imagery for healthcare can be a real challenge, especially if you are trying to avoid the common tropes, for this reason we often suggest bespoke illustration as an alternative, and we are very fortunate to have a group of very talented illustrators within the team.

What misconception about healthcare design would you dispel?

People assume designing in healthcare can be a little dull and samey: scientific content, blue and green corporate pharma colour palettes, Photoshop’d images of patients breaking through walls, death by PowerPoint – but it’s the opposite!

Yes, there are aspects of that but it’s an incredibly rewarding sector to work in, both creatively and technically. We get to translate complex mechanisms of action into graphic or illustrated pieces that everyone can understand, we create educational disease awareness explainer animations and emotionally charged patient videos – the work we do is wide-ranging, complex and challenging but for all the right reasons.

What design challenges are the hardest?

Data visualisation – it’s one of the things I am most passionate about as I believe data presented in the right way can really contextualise the content and bring people into the story we are telling. The exploration of how we present that data can take some time and throw-up problems that you wouldn’t find in other projects, such as creating interactive user-led journeys through the content. It doesn’t have to be fancy or over-complicated, just something that gives the viewer the content in the most digestible, yet meaningful way.

The Pharmacy is Virgo Health’s award-winning global creative design studio, specializing in healthcare design and content production. Their work ranges across artwork, animation, 3D, films, photography presentation, digital design, booth and experiential design and illustration. To learn more about our capabilities or share a brief please email [email protected].