How to Optimize the Medical Material Review Process

Medical Affairs review teams keep hitting the same wall: material volume keeps climbing, timelines keep shrinking, and review capacity doesn't scale on its own. Acceleration Point has seen this pattern across more than 35 medical review teams, and one client engagement shows what changes when a team gets deliberate about the process.

Scott Thompson (CEO, Acceleration Point) and Jeffrey Tucker (Director of Operational Support, Acceleration Point) walk through a case study built on four years of supporting a top 10 pharma company's medical material review (MMR) process. Tucker's team grew from handling around 4,000 material reviews a year to a pace of roughly 6,000 in 2024, all while cutting expedited reviews by 16% and holding stakeholder satisfaction at 95% or higher. The conversation covers how a dedicated MMR coordinator role, built around proactive planning and real process ownership, made that shift possible. If your team is managing rising material volume without a clear owner for the process, this is the session to watch.

What You'll Learn

• How to define the medical material review (MMR) coordinator role as a strategic partner instead of a "human report" who just relays status updates
• The three-part framework behind this case study's results: improving the process, providing actual support, and building a culture of continuous improvement
• How categorizing expedited review requests and sharing the pattern with therapeutic area leads reduced last-minute reviews
• Why tying proactive planning to the event and product launch pipeline cuts down on materials that get submitted but never used
• How to measure stakeholder satisfaction with an annual survey across content owners, reviewers, and agency partners, then turn the themes into action items
• What a centralized communication approach (a shared inbox and standing weekly agenda) does for continuity when a coordinator is out

About Our Speakers

Scott Thompson is Co-CEO and founder of Acceleration Point, where he has spent the last 15 years working with medical affairs teams on medical excellence, process improvement, and technology. He hosts this case study conversation with Jeffrey Tucker.

Connect with Scott on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/medical-excellence/

Jeffrey Tucker is Director of Operational Support at Acceleration Point, leading a team of material review coordinators who support medical affairs teams across the globe. In this case study, he shares four years of work optimizing the medical material review process for a top 10 pharma company.

Connect with Jeffrey on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffrey-tucker-294887aa/

FAQ

What does a medical material review (MMR) coordinator do?
An MMR coordinator manages the review process for medical materials rather than reviewing content directly. The role combines tactical work (tracking materials, running quality checks, maintaining the review schedule) with strategic work (proactive planning with content owners, resolving reviewer comments, and driving continuous improvement), functioning as an extension of the medical team rather than a project manager.

How can medical affairs teams reduce expedited material reviews?
In this case study, the team reduced expedited reviews by categorizing why each expedite happened and sharing those patterns with therapeutic area leads, paired with proactive planning tied to the upcoming event and launch pipeline so materials get queued up before they become urgent.

How is stakeholder satisfaction measured for a material review process?
The team in this case study runs an annual customer satisfaction survey, typically toward the end of the third quarter, soliciting feedback from content owners, reviewers, and external agency partners. Results are grouped by theme and used to build specific action items for the next cycle.

What results did this case study achieve?
Over four years, the team reduced expedited reviews by 16% and maintained stakeholder satisfaction of 95% or higher, while scaling from about 4,000 material reviews a year to roughly 6,000 in 2024 with six coordinators averaging about 600 materials each.

Curious how this applies to your organization? Let's talk.

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