I recently spent 3 days at ISMPP 2026 in Washington, DC, listening to some of the sharpest minds in Medical Communications wrestle with a challenge every one of our clients is navigating right now. How do you take a single body of evidence and communicate it consistently, compliantly, and effectively across more channels than ever before?
The conference made it clear that this is not a volume problem. Most teams now have the tools to produce content at scale. The harder problem is governance: ensuring that the same data, interpreted and adapted for different audiences, tells the same underlying story.
The failure mode has a name: Emphasis drift
One of the most useful concepts to emerge from the session “From Manuscript to Multiple Channels” was the idea of “Emphasis drift.” As a scientific narrative is adapted for HCPs, payers, patients, and the press, subtle changes in framing accumulate. A key secondary outcome gets promoted. A confidence interval disappears. A safety profile gets softened.
No single adaptation looks wrong. But the cumulative effect is a body of communications that no longer coheres. That creates regulatory, reputational, and scientific risk, especially as artificial intelligence gets added into the mix.
The session introduced a practical framework for thinking about this: audience journey mapping. Before adapting any content, you need to know where your audience sits on the journey from “unfamiliar” to “champion.” That determines not just what you say, but how much context they need and what action you are trying to prompt.
It sounds straightforward. In practice, it requires deliberate cross-functional collaboration between Publications, Digital/Omnichannel, and Medical Affairs teams that are still, in many organizations, operating in silos (a topic covered in the keynote presentation by Kirk Shepard).
Plain language is no longer optional
The “Beyond PowerPoint” session reinforced something we already know but do not always act on: the same data, presented differently, creates a completely different cognitive experience. On average, HCPs spend 88 seconds on a manuscript. Publications with audio and visual extenders are four times more likely to be clicked or viewed.
Plain language summaries (PLS) are now being mandated by regulators and requested by HTA bodies. This is not about dumbing down the science. It is about reducing the mental effort required to understand evidence and ensuring that the people who need to act on it can. I wrongly assumed that most publication teams within pharma are developing PLS, but there appears to be lagging adoption…why? A topic to dive into separately.
The “From Podcasts to Patient Inputs” session went further, offering a decision framework for nontraditional formats: podcasts, video abstracts, interactive scientific response letters, and patient-input publications. The key insight was that format selection should begin with the audience, not the journal. Ask who you are trying to reach, how and from where they prefer to receive information, and what action you want them to take. Then identify the format that best serves that purpose.
Social media requires governance, not just creativity
The “Social Media Tightrope” and “Social Studies Roundtable” sessions served a timely reminder that LinkedIn is now the primary channel for HCP scientific exchange, but the compliance environment is complex and evolving fast. Off-label sensitivity, FDA oversight, and LinkedIn’s own restrictions on sensitive health data all apply.
A few things stood out from the practical guidance shared in the room:
- Engage MLR at least four weeks (six weeks is even better) before deployment. Not two. Not one. Four.
- Create a social media calendar to align on messaging, intended audience, format, and cadence, preferably covering the next 12 months. Be deliberate and inform MLR of your plans (see above).
- Pre-approved templates and concept reviews reduce friction and protect consistency. Build them before you need them.
- LinkedIn’s paid targeting capabilities are genuinely useful for Medical Affairs. Precise specialty, NPI, and geography filters can make even a new account outperform an established one.
- The line between scientific awareness and product promotion is not always obvious. It needs to be drawn explicitly in your social media governance framework.
