How a Top-20 Pharma Brand Increased HCP Engagement by 40%

Background and Challenge

A top-20 global pharmaceutical company was facing a critical challenge with its flagship oncology brand, OncaTruva (a next-generation targeted therapy for non-small cell lung cancer). Despite strong clinical data and favorable formulary positioning, the brand had experienced three consecutive quarters of declining HCP engagement by Q3 2024. The composite engagement score had dropped from 72 to 51 out of 100, well below the oncology franchise benchmark of 68.

The brand team managed a complex multi-channel engagement strategy spanning 135 field-based sales representatives, approved email campaigns through Veeva Vault, a growing Remote Therapeutic Engagement (RTE) program, medical science liaison interactions, congress presence at ASCO and ESMO, and a digital content hub. However, these channels operated in silos, with no unified view of individual HCP engagement across touchpoints.

Specific pain points included:

• Declining rep access: Average reach rate for high-value oncologists had fallen from 62% to 41% over 18 months, with no data-driven strategy for which HCPs to prioritize or which channel to use for outreach.
• Low email engagement: Approved email open rates were stuck at 18%, below the 24% oncology benchmark. Content was generic and not segmented by HCP engagement tier or prescribing behavior.
• Underperforming RTE program: The Remote Therapeutic Engagement program had been launched 8 months prior but was only reaching 12% of target HCPs, with a completion rate of 28%.
• No cross-channel coordination: Reps were visiting HCPs who had already engaged deeply with digital content, while digitally-active HCPs in restricted-access geographies were receiving no follow-up from the field team.

The vice president of oncology marketing described the situation as "flying blind with a fragmented toolkit." The brand was spending $38 million annually on HCP engagement but could not quantify which channels were driving meaningful interactions, nor could it identify which HCPs were at risk of disengagement.

"We knew we had an engagement problem, but we could not diagnose it. Every channel reported its own metrics in its own dashboard, and nobody could tell us the holistic story of an individual HCP's journey with our brand." — VP of Oncology Marketing

Approach

In January 2025, the brand engaged a cross-functional team including marketing analytics, commercial operations, and an external omnichannel consultancy to design and implement a 12-month engagement optimization initiative. The approach was structured in four phases.

Phase 1: Unified Engagement Scoring Model (Months 1-3)

The team built a weighted composite engagement scoring model that aggregated interactions across all channels into a single 0-100 score for each HCP. The model weighted channels based on their empirically measured correlation with prescribing behavior using 24 months of historical data. The channel weights were calibrated as follows:

• Field rep visits (in-person and virtual): 30% weight, reflecting the strongest correlation with script volume in oncology
• RTE completion and interaction depth: 20% weight, capturing the growing importance of digital clinical discussions
• Approved email engagement (opens, clicks, time spent): 15% weight
• Medical Affairs interactions (MSL visits, medical information requests): 15% weight
• Congress engagement (booth visits, symposia attendance, poster interactions): 10% weight
• Digital content hub (resource downloads, time on site): 10% weight

Each HCP was assigned a composite score that updated weekly based on a rolling 90-day engagement window. The scoring model also incorporated recency weighting, giving more influence to recent interactions than older ones, to detect engagement trends and early warning signs of disengagement.

Phase 2: HCP Segmentation and Tiering (Months 3-4)

Using the composite engagement scores, the team segmented the 14,200 target HCPs into five engagement tiers:

• Tier 1 — Champions (score 80-100): 1,840 HCPs (13%) who were highly engaged across multiple channels and consistently prescribing
• Tier 2 — Active (score 60-79): 3,260 HCPs (23%) with solid engagement but room for deeper interaction
• Tier 3 — Moderate (score 40-59): 4,120 HCPs (29%) with sporadic engagement, representing the largest opportunity for improvement
• Tier 4 — Low (score 20-39): 3,410 HCPs (24%) with minimal engagement, many in access-restricted settings
• Tier 5 — Dormant (score 0-19): 1,570 HCPs (11%) with no meaningful engagement in the trailing 90 days

This segmentation replaced the previous system, which relied solely on decile-based prescribing volume. Under the old model, the team had been over-investing in high-prescribing HCPs who were already Champions while neglecting Tier 3 HCPs whose prescribing was growing but engagement was inconsistent.

Phase 3: Channel Strategy Realignment (Months 4-8)

The most significant operational change was reallocating field force effort based on engagement tiers rather than prescription deciles. Previously, 65% of rep calls were directed at the top 3 decile prescribers. The new strategy distributed rep effort based on a combined view of engagement level, prescribing trajectory, and access viability:

• Tier 1 Champions: Maintenance calls reduced from monthly to quarterly, supplemented by digital touchpoints. Freed capacity was redirected to Tier 3.
• Tier 2 Active: Maintained call frequency but improved content relevance using engagement history (e.g., following up on RTE topics the HCP had explored).
• Tier 3 Moderate: Received a 40% increase in call frequency, from an average of 1.2 to 1.7 calls per month. Reps were armed with personalized talk tracks based on the HCP's specific engagement gaps.
• Tier 4 Low: Shifted primarily to digital channels (RTE and approved email) with quarterly in-person attempts by territory reps.
• Tier 5 Dormant: Automated digital nurture sequences with medical content, triggered by data signals such as formulary changes or new patient starts.

Critically, the team integrated RTE with the field force workflow. When an HCP completed an RTE session exploring a specific clinical topic, the system automatically notified the territory rep with a suggested follow-up discussion guide. This "digital-to-field handoff" was implemented through Veeva CRM integration and became one of the highest-impact changes in the program.

Phase 4: Optimization and Scale (Months 8-12)

The final phase focused on continuous optimization through A/B testing of channel sequences, refining the engagement scoring model based on observed prescribing outcomes, and building predictive models to identify HCPs at risk of dropping from Tier 2 to Tier 3. The team also extended the scoring model to include nurse practitioners and physician assistants, who represented a growing segment of prescribers in community oncology settings.

Results

After 12 months, the initiative delivered measurable improvements across every key metric:

Engagement score improvement: The composite HCP engagement score increased from an average of 51 to 72 (a 40% relative improvement), bringing the brand back above the oncology franchise benchmark. The improvement was most pronounced in Tier 3 Moderate HCPs, whose average score rose from 48 to 67.

Qualified interaction growth: The number of HCPs meeting the "qualified interaction" threshold (defined as meaningful engagement across two or more channels within a 30-day window) increased by 25%, from 4,260 to 5,325 HCPs. This represented a significant expansion of the actively engaged prescriber base.

Script lift: In the targeted Tier 2 and Tier 3 segments, TRx volume grew 15% compared to the prior 12-month period, significantly outpacing the oncology market growth rate of 4.2%. Using a matched control group methodology (comparing similar HCPs who were not exposed to the optimized engagement strategy), the team attributed approximately 10 percentage points of the 15% growth directly to the engagement initiative, with the remaining 5% attributable to market dynamics.

RTE program transformation: The RTE completion rate improved from 28% to 42.5%, driven by the integration with rep visits and the personalized content sequencing. The digital-to-field handoff generated 1,840 follow-up conversations in a six-month period, with 68% of those conversations rated as "high quality" by the rep.

Field force efficiency: Despite reallocating effort away from Tier 1 Champions, revenue from that segment was maintained (declining only 1.2%, well within the acceptable maintenance range). Meanwhile, the cost-per-qualified-interaction decreased by 18% as reps focused on higher-probability conversations.

Revenue impact: The finance team estimated $4.8 million in incremental annual revenue attributable to the engagement optimization initiative, representing a 6.2:1 return on the $775,000 investment in analytics, consulting, and technology integration.

Key Takeaways

Beyond the quantitative results, the initiative fundamentally changed how the brand team thought about HCP relationships. The engagement scoring model became the standard operating metric for weekly brand reviews, replacing the patchwork of channel-specific dashboards that had previously dominated discussions. The approach has since been adopted by two other oncology brands within the franchise.