Katherine Gann 

Welcome to the Medical Affairs Professional Society MSL Field Medical Focus Area Working Group’s podcast series, entitled Field Medical Stakeholders: Partnering for Today and Tomorrow. In the second podcast, we will discuss global product strategy. I’m Katherine Gann. I’m a member of the MSL Field Medical Focus Area Working Group, and I’ll be the moderator for this podcast. Currently, I’m an independent consultant in Medical Affairs. Having spent my 30 year career as an MSL and MSL manager and an MSL trainer. Our legal disclaimer is the views expressed in this recording are those of the individuals and do not necessarily reflect on the opinions of MAPS, or the companies with which they are affiliated. This presentation is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as legal or regulatory advice. We encourage you to engage in conversations about partnering with Field Medical stakeholders with other match members via the community portal on the MAPS website. Simply log in with the email address and password associated with your MAPS account and click on the discussion tab. Then scroll down to Field Medical to post a question or review previous postings. The objectives for this series of podcasts are that at the end of the series participant will be able to one discuss the functions and activities of key internal stakeholders and to identify potential areas for compliant collaboration by MSL with key internal stakeholders. I’d like to thank today’s panelists for sharing their subject matter expertise with the MAPS membership. Speaking today are Lori Mouser, Global Head Medical Customer Engagement at Roche, and Dominique Kagele Integrated Insights Leader Global Product Strategy Team at Genentech. Lori will be our interviewer today. Lori, could you please briefly provide some information about your current position?

Lori Mouser 

Yes, Katherine, thank you so much. And thanks to Matt, for this opportunity. I think this will really be a great discussion. So yeah, I work at Roche. I’m the Global Head for medical customer engagement. And what that means is I’m responsible for our global medical information group, as well as all things related to Field Medical and the various Field Medical roles that we have at Roche. I’ve been in the pharmaceutical industry now for over 20 years. And I’ve really primarily worked in the Field Medical space. So really happy to be having the opportunity to share with you some of our thoughts today and introduce dominate, Keiko who actually also works within the rush family at Genentech, which is the US Roche group. And Dominique is the integrated insights leader in our global Product Strategy Team in hematology and oncology. So, Dominique, welcome.

Dominique Kagele 

Thank you so much, Lori, and Kathy, Kathy, it’s a it’s a great pleasure to be here. Thank you.

Lori Mouser 

Can you just give us a little bit more background on what what is an integrated insights leader in global product strategy?

Dominique Kagele 

Global product strategy, as you mentioned before, is a is a group within Roche Genentech. And I guess I’ll just clarify very quickly that Genentech is owned by Roche. It’s the US affiliate for Roche. With that being said, I actually do work for Genentech, but I’m doing global product strategy. So I know there’s a little bit of a confusion there. I do work with many of my Roche colleagues in setting the commercialization strategy for many of our products that have indications or are being currently developed in hematology oncology, and specifically for for malignant team.

Lori Mouser 

Well, I’m going to ask you a few more questions and dig into some detail because it’s really interesting that you are working in a global role like this. And you mentioned a little bit about Roche and Genentech. And could you maybe talk a little bit more about what is this that global product strategy does? What’s the deliverable? What’s the main thing that you do all day?

Dominique Kagele 

Yes. So as an integrated insights leader, my main role is to serve as a strategic thought partner within the Strategy Group for both molecule teams that have indications in Hmong as well as the overall team disease area strategy teams. What that really means is that I am looked to as the expert on the market dynamics, the coming from a patient perspective, as well as the physicians perspective, being aware of of what’s going on in the market by keeping up to date on what’s going on there, through market research secondary as well as primary, and then feeding that information, not only into our strategy, but also into valuation and forecasting for our molecules.

Lori Mouser 

Do you look at it more on a disease state level or by the molecule? Or how do you begin to tackle such a dynamic and ever changing area?

Dominique Kagele 

Yes, you’re absolutely right. It’s forever changing, even even within, you know, weeks at a time of, they’ll be significant changes. And that’s actually part of the fun, at least for me. But the answer to your question, Is it is it strategy more for a disease area or for a molecule? And the answer is both. So I sit on both molecule teams, as well as the disease area Strategy Team for for many indications within hematology oncology, how I tend to stay on top of that is, as I mentioned before, it’s it’s a, it’s not only your primary and secondary market research, but also really leveraging the expertise and the individuals who are close to our, our external stakeholders, like patient advocacy groups, as well as physicians and KOLs. So IE our Medical Affairs colleagues, you know, you started to talk about the team and some of the people you work with, who are your main internal customers in this role. I work on cross functional teams. And that’s one of the beauties of my role is that I get to work with just so many smart people and experts in their own different areas. And that part is just it’s it’s what makes my job part of what makes my job so much fun. But my internal stakeholders are typically those individuals who own the lifecycle of certain molecules. And those individuals who are in some way related to that I work, as I mentioned, I’m on cross functional teams. So that includes folks from pricing and access, regulatory, Medical Affairs, commercial, obviously, clinical development, and r&d is really the most fun aspect, but to understand, but different kinds of people that you get to work with and how everyone brings their expertise to the table.

Lori Mouser 

That’s great. Now you were saying that you work in global product strategy? How does your work compare with I kept the US Product Strategy Group? What are the differences? And how did the two groups work together?

Dominique Kagele 

So I work very closely with my use us affiliate colleague who does has a very similar role as mine. However, the key differences that I mentioned, mine is global. So I have to integrate the insights from basically all markets and get a feeling of you know, what’s, what’s going on in each market and how affects the long term strategy for a particular molecule or disease areas. For my newest colleague, typically, they focus on the US market, not only pre launch, but also post launch a bit more than I do. I am more focused on late stage development, and perhaps even indications that we don’t have approval for that, you know, for for molecules that are on the market, but I don’t typically manage molecules that are, you know, that within it within an indication that’s already marketed. Yeah, I see what you mean more established you, you you work in the more newer therapeutic areas.

Lori Mouser 

Exactly. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I want to change tack a little bit and ask you, I take a peek at your LinkedIn posts. So I think you’re going to have a good answer to this question. What is your understanding of the role of MSL But I was I was an MSL for three years in pulmonology and pulmonary diseases, specifically asthma and COPD. And then I was actually an MSL in hemonc and myeloid diseases and share with us a little bit how you then in your current role interact with Field Medical partners and and maybe some examples or best practices of how that’s worked for you.

Dominique Kagele 

Now, I’ve been at Genentech, Roche, since February, so it’s not been too long and unfortunately, it COVID struck I would say under normal circumstances, I would be interacting with MSL with field Ms. Sell colleagues a whole lot more at conferences by a MSL, and they’re really good close relationships with thought leaders, you know, I can only imagine that I would be able to leverage their expertise as well as those relationships with those thought leaders. With that being said, I have had multiple interactions with field, excuse me with our Medical Affairs colleagues who are at the US and global level, and also had the opportunity to see and use the insights that MSL have provided themselves. And what I mean insights, I mean, the insights reports that they’ve generated post conferences and post ad boards, as well as just insights that are collected on a daily basis through the interactions that CMS has have. And so taking those insights and applying that knowledge into our strategy, both from a product development as well as a clinical development strategy, and when I say clinical development, I mean, physicians interest in, in running studies in is is there it is investigator initiated trials, and whether or not it makes sense to keep those as I SS or make those larger, you know, into work company sponsored trials. Those are the ways that I have interacted with and and I say interested with but really using the, you know, the rich insights that MSL to provided through their, their knowledge and expertise and interactions with the external thought leaders. And he probably bring a lot of that perspective to some of your other colleagues who maybe haven’t had as much exposure to the Field Medical or Medical Affairs roles. So I think having that background, I’m assuming is really helping you also in your current role. In fact, you hit the nail on the head, that was my selling point. And my role today, just because I come from a non traditional background compared to many of my other colleagues who are in global product strategy, maybe you can tell us, you know, what led you to make that change and what your career path was to move from being an MSL to working in product strategy and and how you made that turn. I was in a similar role. Whether it was not in pharma, it was but our customers were pharmaceutical and biotech companies. And I worked for a smaller CR O, preclinical CRM, I should say, the preclinical model for running study for running preclinical studies, I had done market research and was a part of the had been on the cross functional business development teams. But I wanted to, again, kind of have them have greater impact on patient care that was more tangible to me and something that I could see and demonstrate in my lifetime attracted to the MSL role for that reason, because as I mentioned before, I had never really had contact with patients and as an MSL, you don’t really either, but you are you leverage the KOL, who obviously has much experience and truly learn what’s important to them. So that’s what attracted me to the MSL role in the first place. And then, once I was an MSL, for three years, I actually went to business school, I graduated from Business School in June with my MBA in finance. And I wanted to leverage not only the information, the valuable information that we that we as msls get from KOL be able to bridge I guess, different perspectives when you think about the external thought leader community and patients. And then business like pharmaceutical company, where they are trying to make more medications for for patients to help them feel better. And so kind of rounding out that, that the ability to provide the clinical or scientific perspective, but also understand it from the business lens. That was kind of my goal for going into global product strategy.

Lori Mouser 

I really admire you for thinking about what it is you wanted to do, and then figuring out how to to leverage your skills and then also learn what you needed to learn to get there. So thank you so much, so many for sharing your story with us and I so thank you so much for sharing that with us. Thank you so much Lori’s been. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you.

Katherine Gann 

And I just want to echo Lori and actually thank both Lori and Dominique for participating today. I found Dominique’s discussion about how global product strategy works with us product strategy, how they interconnect, very interesting. And also the fact that Dominique was able to take her experience on the Medical side of an organization and now use that on the Commercial side of an organization. So as we say all skills are transferable. And I think that was very valuable for people to hear. So in line with our learning objectives, I think I hope that everyone now has a better understanding of the role and function of global product strategy, and also how MSL is may compliantly interact with that team. And certainly, hearing how Dominique has structured her career and using her MSL skills to build her career was of great value. This has been the second podcast in a series on the topic of Field Medical stakeholders Partnering for today and tomorrow. If you are matched member thank you for your support of MAPS. If you’re not yet a MAPS member and would like access to additional resources in this area, please visit the MAPS website to explore joining that website is Medical Affairs.org forward slash membership. This concludes the podcast.