Respiratory care
Identifying potential clinical advocates and/or speakers in the respiratory care community using multidimensional evidence.
Client
A global biopharmaceutical organisation aiming to deliver a therapy for patients in Europe with a chronic and progressive lung condition.
The objective
The client aimed to validate and prioritise community-based clinicians capable of acting as effective speaking advocates for a chronic lung condition in Europe. The goal was to refine an initial list of clinicians to understand who had the potential to be an advocate given their industry experience, scientific profile, conference attendance, educational content, disease associations, and connections to recognised experts through professional networks.
The challenge
Identifying which clinicians were suitable for advocacy roles required a rigorous and structured validation process. These were the two key challenges:
- Limited visibility of community-based advocacy and educational influence: Many clinicians active in community care contribute to education and peer-to-peer knowledge sharing through regional meetings, local initiatives, or digital platforms. These activities are rarely captured in traditional scientific datasets, meaning that clinicians who play an important role in educating peers and shaping local clinical practice may remain invisible in conventional analyses.
- Scientific visibility does not equal advocacy influence: Traditional methods for identifying influential clinicians often rely heavily on publication records or major congress participation. However, strong speaking advocates are not always the most scientifically prolific clinicians. Without a broader evaluation framework, it can be difficult to distinguish between individuals with scientific visibility and those with genuine advocacy capability and communication experience.
To ensure engagement efforts focused on the most relevant and advocacy-ready clinicians, the client required a structured, evidence-based approach capable of validating and prioritising candidates beyond traditional scientific indicators.
GDS’s Approach
To address these challenges, GDS applied a multidimensional profiling framework designed to evaluate advocacy potential beyond traditional scientific visibility.
- Analysis of digital influence, including professional social media activity, disease-related educational content, and audience engagement
- Evaluation of scientific contribution through research activity, clinical research, and speaking experience related to the condition.
- Analysis of scientific activity in correlated diseases to broaden the search and capture relevant expertise not always visible within the target disease alone.
- Evaluation of industry collaboration history and research partnerships
- Assessment of leadership roles and peer recognition within respiratory and professional medical societies
- Analysis of professional collaboration networks, identifying clinicians connected to recognised experts through shared research activity, professional collaborations, and multiple work locations indicating potential referral relationships.
- Comprehensive individual evaluation of each clinician across multilingual sources and multiple evidence signals, capturing all influence signals.
By integrating these signals, GDS was able to identify clinicians demonstrating both scientific credibility and the communication profile required for effective advocacy.