AI Solutions for Medical Affairs Insight Generation: A Field Medical Case Study

Medical Affairs teams have collected field insights for decades, yet most still describe the same problem: the data goes in and nothing comes back out. A recent McKinsey report found that less than 1 percent of submitted field insights are ever read, according to Scott Thompson. This webinar breaks down why insight programs stall and what changed when one field medical team put generative AI to work on the problem.

Scott Thompson (Co-Founder, Acceleration Point) is joined by Dave Harper, who at the time of this session was Senior Field Medical Director, Cardiovascular at Sanofi. Harper leads a cardiometabolic field medical team that collects tens of thousands of insight data points a year, split between structured survey responses and unstructured free text, and for years struggled to turn that volume into timely, actionable reporting. The conversation centers on ElsieAI, the generative AI insight tool built into Acceleration Point's Kwello platform, which Harper's team uses to summarize field insights by topic, date range, or individual MSL, with every summary linked back to its original source citation. If your team is still waiting weeks or months for insight reports to reach a decision, this is the session to watch.

What You'll Learn

• Sanofi's cardiometabolic field medical team collects tens of thousands of insight data points a year, and manual review historically took up to four months to turn January's insights into a usable report by May.
• Scott Thompson cites a McKinsey finding that less than 1 percent of submitted field insights are ever read by the teams responsible for acting on them.
• Dave Harper describes using ElsieAI to query insights by topic, date range, or individual MSL in near real time, with source citations attached to every summary so reviewers can verify who said what.
• Citation-linked summaries let field leaders confirm an insight's credibility by seeing which specific KOL it came from, according to Harper.
• Acceleration Point extends AI insight access to every MSL, not just management, so reps can review trends in their own territory and receive AI-generated coaching feedback on their own insight submissions.
• Harper and Thompson discuss testing AI accuracy by reading the underlying citations before trusting a summary, and note that fair, unbiased output requires ongoing human review rather than a one-time check.

About Our Speakers

Scott Thompson is Co-Founder of Acceleration Point. He hosts Acceleration Point's webinar series on Medical Affairs technology and strategy, including this session's discussion of AI-driven insight generation.

Connect with Scott on LinkedIn: [LinkedIn URL needed — not provided; let me know and I'll add it]

Dave Harper is Regional Director of MSLs at Novartis. At the time of this Acceleration Point webinar, he was Senior Field Medical Director, Cardiovascular at Sanofi, where he spent more than 20 years on the cardiometabolic field medical team, including several years as an MSL before moving into leadership.

Connect with Dave on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-harper-utah/

FAQ

What AI tool does the field medical team in this webinar use to analyze insight data?
Dave Harper's team uses ElsieAI, the generative AI insight tool within Acceleration Point's Kwello platform, to summarize field insights by topic, date range, or individual MSL, with each summary linked to its original source citation.

How much field insight data does a Medical Affairs team typically collect in a year?
Dave Harper reports that a year of combined structured survey and unstructured insight data easily totals tens of thousands of individual data points, which is difficult to review manually within a useful timeframe.

How long did it take insights to reach medical strategy teams before AI-assisted summarization?
Scott Thompson and Dave Harper describe a common lag of up to four months, where insights collected in January weren't compiled into a usable report until the end of May.

Can MSLs access AI insight tools directly, or is it limited to leadership?
According to Scott Thompson, Acceleration Point extends AI insight access to every MSL on a team, not only management, so field reps can review trends in their own territory and get AI-generated coaching feedback on their insight submissions.

About Acceleration Point Webinars

Acceleration Point webinars bring Medical Affairs and Field Medical leaders together to share practical insights, emerging strategies, and real-world perspectives on the challenges shaping the industry. Each session is designed to support the professionals driving scientific exchange, field medical excellence, and Medical Affairs transformation.

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

Browse all webinars and resources

[00:00] Introduction and Session Overview
[00:45] Meet Dave Harper: Background and Experience
[02:23] Challenges in Insight Generation
[11:49] AI Solutions for Insight Challenges
[23:39] Interactive Q&A: Insight Generation Challenges
[29:09] Implementing AI in Medical Affairs