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P33: Evolving Trends in Medical Affairs in the Pharmaceutical Industry: Plain Language Summaries of Scientific Publications

Poster Presenter

Kelsey Lee

Assistant Director, Global Oncology Scientific Communications & Education
Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
United States

Objectives

Plain Language Summary (PLS) publications are being increasingly leveraged in medical affairs in the pharmaceutical industry to communicate scientific data to patients, caregivers and healthcare professionals; here we will provide insights on the various formats of PLS of scientific publications.

Method

A PLS is a description that is written in simple language that can be easily understood and used by a general audience without a medical or research background. We piloted several different formats of Plain Language Summaries of publications and assessed the reach and uptake of the various formats.

Results

This pilot began in May 2019 and is currently ongoing. The global medical affairs oncology publications team developed the following PLS formats to accompany scientific publications: 1) a text-only PLS within a scientific manuscript in an open access journal, 2) a cartoon video accompanying a scientific manuscript that provides a visual overview of the manuscript and is freely available to view or download on the journal’s website, 3) a patient infographic accompanying a scientific manuscript that depicts a summary of the full paper, and 4) a scientific manuscript fully translated into a patient-focused manuscript, co-authored by a patient and a patient advocate, that is available open access. Open access is a practice by which publications are available immediately online and are freely accessible to the public. For the text-only PLS, within the first 3 weeks of online publication, there were 877 full-text downloads and 390 unique page views, with the most prolific geographic reach in the USA, Germany, United Kingdom, Japan and India. Within the first 3 months of online publication, there were 1,585 full-text downloads. For the cartoon video, after approximately 10 months of publication, there were a total of 1,995 views and 276 downloads. The manuscript containing the infographic has not yet been published, and metrics on the full PLS manuscript are not yet mature. These will be reported in the presentation. In a survey amongst patients and patient advocates in December 2020, we asked which format of PLS resonates more for patients. Respondents preferred the PLS formats in the following order (highest to lowest): infographic, cartoon video, patient-focused manuscript, text-only description.

Conclusion

Research has shown that patients seek information from scientific publications, especially when the information is in an easy-to-understand and digestible format. With evolving trends of digitalization in the pharmaceutical industry and plain language summaries being increasingly recognized as useful tools to communicate scientific data to broad audiences, we piloted several successful formats of PLS to extend the reach and uptake of scientific data. Formats such as text-only of varying lengths, infographics, and enhanced media content have the potential to meet the needs of readers with a wide range of learning preferences. Furthermore, publishing PLS in open access journals allows readers such as patients, caregivers, healthcare professionals and the general public to stay abreast of recent advances in science and medicine; this is especially true during the current COVID-19 pandemic where in-person meetings and face-to-face congresses are limited. These findings demonstrate that developing and publishing diverse formats of PLS in open access venues can extend the reach and impact of scientific data to broad audiences.