How to Use Pharmaceutical Industry Medical Information Services

Medical Information Services in the Pharmaceutical Industry are a valuable resource for information about their products that is not otherwise freely available; e.g. unpublished data on stability, excipient details for licensed products and information on usage and availability of unlicensed products. Therefore they are best contacted when the information sought is not available in other resources e.g. BNF, SmPC, NEWT, Renal Drug Database etc. The staff providing the service will have access to extensive information about their products, but the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) Code of Practice does not permit them to provide medical advice or clinical interpretation of the information.

The UKMi Clinical Governance working group in conjunction with the Pharmaceutical Information and Pharmacovigilance Association (PIPA) have prepared a list of things to consider when MI pharmacists/pharmacy technicians contact a pharmaceutical company Medical Information Department with an enquiry.

Introduce yourself and state where you are calling from.

Provide your contact details, so they can be recorded and you can be contacted again.

If you don’t work full time or if you work in multiple locations, it helps if you can also provide details of the most convenient times for you to be contacted or a colleague’s name and contact details as an alternative contact.

Ensure that you are contacting the correct company for the product that you are requesting information for.

Be clear what your question is and provide any background information that will help the company provide the best answer possible. Unclear and poorly-worded questions will result in responses that may not help you with your enquiry. Specific questions are more likely to yield specific answers.

Let the Medical Information Department know if the enquiry relates to a specific patient or patients and the reason for the enquiry, or if it is purely for administration work (such as updates to your databases). For enquiries associated with adverse events (AEs), product complaints and other safety information, the enquiry handlers will request additional information. They need minimum information such as patient initials, age and gender to be able to take the enquiry further. It will be helpful if you have this information ready for sharing during a call to reduce follow-up communication from their pharmacovigilance department. Even if you provide all the information requested by the MI call handler, the Pharmacovigilance department may need to contact you for additional information. The information collected is used to update information provided to the patients and healthcare professionals using the medicine.

If you are using a product that has multiple indications, and it is a patient specific enquiry, please state the indication you are using the product for. This will help narrow searches and provide a more relevant answer. Additionally, being specific about the drug strength or formulation will help the Medical Information Department pick the correct information for you.

Be clear about when you need the answer by and ask the company if they are able to meet the

deadline. If they say no, ask when you can expect an answer. The company may need some time to get the information together – ask if they know how long this will be. Be reasonable with your expectation and be prepared to compromise. Medical Information Departments will always prioritise patient-centric enquiries but some companies can take up to 10 working days to respond to complex enquiries.

If you have already looked in a number of resources, such as the SmPC/PIL, tell the company. This may help to avoid duplication of work. If you want them to look in specific places, e.g. their own data on file, ask them to do so.

If you need a written response, state this when you first make your enquiry. The more notice you can give the company, the more likely they will be to respond in a timely manner. If you need an urgent response, please be aware that this is likely to be by a return phone call. Please share your telephone details and those of a mobile/bleep, or colleague, if they are unable to reach you.

If the answer received from a Medical Information Department is not clear, ask what resources have been used to compile the response.

Companies are able to provide information to help with clinical decisions on how patients are going to be treated. However, a company cannot make decisions for Health Care Professionals and are only able to release ‘off-label’ information in response to specific enquiries, so if this is needed make that clear in your initial request.

Ask who you are speaking to and their job title so if you have to get back to the company, you can ask to speak to the same person again. Please be aware that some companies do not permit their employees to share their personal details. Ask for a reference number for your enquiry because often someone else in the team can handle an enquiry in the absence of the person you spoke to.

If you have constructive feedback following good or poor service or a poor response, contact the company and ask to speak to the Medical Information Manager. Feedback is always useful and if those who can make a change don’t know, things won’t change in the future.

UKMi/PIPA liaison group September 2018