Benchmarking Advisory Board Management At Mid-Sized Pharmaceutical & Medical Device Organizations

However, running an effective advisory board requires optimal investment in resources and operations. Also, leaders involved in advisory board management should ensure that the quality of meetings and dialogue with advisory boards is excellent.

Best Practices, LLC designed a study to identify the best practices in advisory board management at mid-sized biopharmaceutical and medical device companies. The study delivers benchmarks on the optimum structure for various types of advisory boards, recruitment of advisory board participants, advisory board operational and resource benchmarks.

NOTE: Segmentation analysis was key to examining trends and effective practices. This research captures insights from the Mid-Sized Companies Segment. Mid-sized companies are those with annual revenues between $1 Billion and less than $10 Billion.

Study Snapshot

Best Practices, LLC engaged 35 executives from 29 leading life sciences companies through a benchmarking survey. Segmentation analysis was key to examining trends and effective practices. Twelve participants from nine companies comprise the Mid-sized Company Segment. Most responses came from the United States and Canada (63%), followed by Asia (20%).

Key Findings

· Physician & Clinical Advisory Boards Most Common: Six out of 10 benchmarked companies maintain physician and clinical advisory boards.
Segments: Large Companies utilize all the types of advisory boards studied in this research. Sixty-two percent of large companies have physician advisory boards and 69% have clinical advisory boards. Half of large companies also host marketing advisory boards.


· Large Companies Prefer National Participants for Physician Advisory Boards: Unlike some benchmarked companies, 56% of large companies prefer national participants as a part of their physician advisory boards while 33% like a mix of both national and regional.

• Type of advisory board used by benchmark participants
• Number of board participants
• Factors influencing number of advisory board participants
• Departments responsible for conducting respective advisory board meetings at participating companies
• Length of advisory board contract
• Preferred reach of advisory board members
• Desired qualifications for advisory board members
• Accepted level of education for each of the advisory board members
• Preferred level of education for each of the advisory board members
• Diverse set of preferred occupations for each of the advisory board member
• Preferred level of experience (in years) in respective field for each of the advisory board member
• Top objectives for establishing respective advisory boards (clinical, marketing, payer, physician advisory boards)
• Number of advisory meetings conducted on an annual basis for each type of advisory board
• Preferred duration (in hours) for each advisory board meeting
• Total duration spent on all advisory board meetings in a year
• Percentage for each type of advisory board meeting conducted by the organization
• Average number of hours taken to prepare for each advisory board meeting
• Advisory board outsourcing
• Area of advisory board work outsourced
• Percentage of the total budget spent on outsourcing activities
• Budget allocated for conducting each advisory board meeting
• Percentage spent on various parameters to conduct an advisory board meeting
• Top challenges encountered when planning and conducting advisory boards
• Best practices to sustain interaction and improve outcomes of advisory boards
• Most important keys to reduce cost drivers involved in conducting advisory boards
• Steps taken to ensure compliance with the Physician Payments Sunshine Act with respect to advisory boards