At a Glance
At medical congresses, physicians often sit through long, expensive sessions only to retain the headline takeaways, and then go back to their practices without the insights that would actually change a treatment decision. For instance, they might not recall which patients the result applies to, or which elements need ongoing monitoring.
Medical Science Liaisons can help fix that, provided that they’re empowered to help clinicians apply evidence rather than just hear it.
Below, we’ll explore five suggested actions for Medical Affairs leadership to help close this gap, along with five complementary steps that congress teams can take.
The biopharmaceutical industry spends heavily to put new clinical data in front of physicians at medical congresses. Yet evidence presented in a packed session often fails to change what happens in the clinic.
The problem is not access to information. It is conversion.
Clinicians leave congresses with more data than they can use. They may remember the headline result but not the study limitation, the patient profile most likely to benefit or the monitoring required after treatment begins. Medical Science Liaisons (MSLs) are positioned to close that gap — but only if congress planning treats scientific exchange as decision support rather than content delivery.
THE CORE PROBLEM: More evidence is reaching clinicians, but too little is being translated into confident, appropriate action.
Closing that gap starts with the people responsible for it in the field.
MSL Credentials, and a Legal Distinction Worth Knowing
Your MSL team’s value depends on scientific credibility and a clear understanding of the legal line they walk in the field. Our companion piece, How Medical Affairs Should Operate Inside the Corporate Exhibit Booth, explains why “learned intermediary” status doesn’t apply to the MSL role, along with the credentialing standards employers should be verifying.
With that role in view, the next question is what actually gets in the way of MSLs doing it well at a congress.
The Information Bottleneck
Congress programs typically emphasize presentations, booth materials and message consistency. Those elements matter, but they do not ensure that a physician can apply the evidence on Monday morning.
A useful scientific exchange should help clinicians answer practical questions: How strong is the evidence? Which patients align with those successfully treated in the published trial? Who may benefit less? What safety issues require attention? What remains uncertain?
When those questions are left for post-congress follow-up, the meeting has generated awareness without improving decision quality.
THE TEST: A successful congress should change what clinicians can evaluate, explain or do – not merely what they can recall.
Give MSLs a Clear Role Description and Achievable Expectations
MSLs should not be treated as extensions of the presentation schedule. Their value lies in understanding where evidence meets clinical judgment.
That means preparing field medical teams to discuss study design, limitations, subgroup relevance, real-world applicability, patient experience and follow-up requirements. It also means giving them room to listen. Questions raised repeatedly in the field can reveal where the evidence is unclear, where implementation is difficult and where additional education or research may be needed.
Used this way, MSL engagement becomes a two-way system: evidence moves toward clinical practice, while insight from clinicians moves back into medical strategy. Your MSL team becomes more integral to the overall medical education mission and augments corporate communications, patient advocacy, marketing, and sales.
5 Actions for Congress Medical Affairs Leadership
Before the meeting, identify the specific treatment, diagnostic, monitoring or referral choices clinicians may reconsider.
Equip MSLs to explain not only the main result, but also study limitations, applicability gaps and unresolved questions.
Tailor discussions to patient population, practice setting and clinician need rather than relying on one standard boilerplate message.
Specify what follow-up is needed, who owns it and how quickly it should occur.
Track whether clinicians gained clarity, identified appropriate patients or changed intended practice – not just the number of interactions.
BOTTOM LINE: The goal is not to make congresses louder. It is to make the evidence easier to use — accurately, compliantly and in the right patients.
What Success Looks Like
A medical affairs-ready congress connects data, dialogue and follow-through. Presentations establish the evidence. MSLs help clinicians test its relevance. Structured follow-up addresses the questions that cannot be resolved on site.
That approach does more than improve the congress experience. It can strengthen patient selection, clarify safety and monitoring expectations and generate better insight into where clinical practice is likely to change — or where it is likely to stall.
Make the Exhibit Booth Part of the Medical Strategy
The exhibit booth is often managed as a branding exercise. Medical affairs teams can get more from it by treating the space as an entry point to scientific exchange – while maintaining a clear line between promotional activity and nonpromotional medical engagement.
A short mechanism-of-action animation can explain a complex biological pathway faster than a static panel. Interactive graphics can let visitors explore study design, endpoints, patient subgroups or the treatment journey at their own pace. The strongest materials do not simply attract attention. They help an HCP identify a relevant question and connect with the right medical expert.
The booth should also work as a listening post. Questions that recur during the meeting can reveal where clinicians find the evidence unclear, where implementation may be difficult and what scientific support is needed after the congress.
THE BOOTH RELEVANCE TEST: Every digital feature should help an HCP understand the science, ask a better question or find appropriate medical follow-up.
5 Actions for Congress Teams
Define the treatment, diagnostic, monitoring or referral decisions the congress evidence should inform, and organize MSL preparation and booth content around them.
Deploy brief mechanism-of-action videos, annotated trial graphics and interactive patient-journey displays. Give visitors control to pause, replay or explore deeper detail, and present limitations, safety information and evidence boundaries with appropriate prominence.
Distinguish the medical-information or medical-affairs area from promotional booth activity through signage, staff roles and operating procedures. HCPs with scientific questions should be routed to trained medical personnel without sales pressure or prescribing-based targeting.
MSLs should identify their medical role, clarify the HCP’s scientific need and provide accurate, balanced and nonpromotional information. They should not use promotional messaging or sales objectives. Questions involving unapproved uses should be managed under approved company procedures and applicable law; proactive engagement should not be used as a pretext to promote off-label use. These principles are consistent with a multi-association MSL position statement[1] and current FDA guidance on firm communications concerning unapproved uses.[2]
Provide an HCP-initiated way to request literature, medical information or follow-up from an MSL. Record recurring scientific questions in approved systems, protect personal data and measure whether interactions improved understanding or identified an unmet evidence need — not simply booth traffic or badge scans.
COMPLIANCE CHECK: Medical affairs should not simply become an off-label help desk inside a promotional booth. Clear role identification, balanced evidence and documented HCP-led follow-up protect the scientific purpose of the exchange.
Compliance-First Design: Protecting Scientific Exchange And Organizational Credibility
Congress design decisions directly affect whether field medical teams can operate in a way that is both scientifically excellent and compliant. Medical Affairs functions are shaped by jurisdiction-specific expectations and regulations,[3] and the “rules of engagement” influence not only content, but also staffing models, documentation, and handling of off-label questions.
For global or regionally mixed congresses, variability across pharmacovigilance and regulatory jurisdictions adds complexity.[4][5] In practice, this means convention managers should build “compliance scaffolding” into the event architecture, including:
- Clear delineation of Medical vs Commercial spaces and roles (including signage and scheduling rules for scientific exchange)
- Pre-defined pathways for handling off-label inquiries (e.g. immediate capture and compliant follow-up)
- Standard workflows for collecting and escalating safety information observed during the meeting[6][7]
- Where country-specific drug safety systems differ (including the structure and expectations of safety evaluation), local context should be recognized in congress planning, particularly for global booths, multi-country advisory boards, and mixed-audience scientific exchange.[8][9]
Some Concluding Thoughts
For convention managers, modern congress excellence means designing for usability, not volume. By enabling MSL scientific exchange that is compliance-forward, safety-operational, and workflow-oriented, meetings can produce takeaways clinicians can implement reliably—supporting consistent monitoring, better persistence,[10][11] and improved credibility of evidence translation.
The practical shift is straightforward: treat congress outputs as decision support. Standardize how evidence is appraised, convert safety content into monitoring bundles,[12] elevate patient-experience implications into routine debriefs, and measure what predicts real-world use. In doing so, convention management becomes an outcomes function — helping ensure that the next wave of evidence does not merely get presented, but gets used.
Frequently Asked Questions
A congress planned so that scientific exchange functions as decision support rather than content delivery. It connects data, dialogue, and follow-through: presentations establish the evidence, MSLs help clinicians test its relevance to their own patients, and structured follow-up addresses the questions that cannot be resolved on site.
The problem is conversion, not access. Clinicians leave congresses with more data than they can use. They may remember the headline result but not the study limitation, the patient profile most likely to benefit, or the monitoring required after treatment begins. When those practical questions are left for post-congress follow-up, the meeting has generated awareness without improving decision quality.
MSLs should not be treated as extensions of the presentation schedule. Their value lies in understanding where evidence meets clinical judgment: discussing study design, limitations, subgroup relevance, real-world applicability, patient experience, and follow-up requirements. They should also listen, since questions raised repeatedly in the field reveal where evidence is unclear and where additional education or research is needed.
By decision support, not activity alone. Track whether clinicians gained clarity, identified appropriate patients, or changed intended practice — not just the number of interactions, booth traffic, or badge scans. A successful congress changes what clinicians can evaluate, explain, or do, not merely what they can recall.
As an entry point to scientific exchange rather than a branding exercise, with a clear line between promotional activity and nonpromotional medical engagement. Mechanism-of-action animations and interactive trial graphics can help an HCP identify a relevant question and connect with the right medical expert. The booth should also work as a listening post for recurring scientific questions.
Building compliance into the event architecture: clear delineation of medical versus commercial spaces and roles, pre-defined pathways for off-label inquiries, standard workflows for collecting and escalating safety information, and recognition of local context where country-specific drug safety systems differ. It matters most for global booths, multi-country advisory boards, and mixed-audience scientific exchange.
Only under approved company procedures and applicable law, and never proactively as a pretext to promote off-label use. MSLs should identify their medical role, clarify the HCP’s scientific need, and provide accurate, balanced, nonpromotional information. These principles are consistent with a multi-association MSL position statement and current FDA guidance on firm communications concerning unapproved uses.
Before: define the clinical decisions the evidence should inform and prepare MSLs to discuss evidence boundaries. During: segment discussions by clinical context, route scientific questions to trained medical personnel, and capture recurring questions in approved systems. After: execute a planned handoff with clear ownership and timing, and measure whether clinicians gained clarity or changed intended practice.
Variability across pharmacovigilance and regulatory jurisdictions adds complexity. Where country-specific drug safety systems differ in structure and expectations, local context should be recognized in congress planning, particularly for global booths, multi-country advisory boards, and mixed-audience scientific exchange. Specific corporate regulatory and compliance guidelines may supersede any general considerations.
References
- NIH: Promoting Best Practices for Medical Science Liaisons Position Statement from the APPA, IFAPP, MAPS and MSLS
- FDA: Communications From Firms to Health Care Providers Regarding Scientific Information on Unapproved Uses
- Dyer SJ, et al. Cureus. 2026;18(3):e105099.
- Maeda H. Front Med (Lausanne). 2021;8:672095.
- Zatovkaňuková P, Slíva J. Eur J Clin Pharmacol. 2024;80(3):305-315.
- Li L, Yin J. Curr Allergy Asthma Rep. 2019;19(9):39.
- Lavertu A, et al. Clin Pharmacol Ther. 2021;109(5):1197-1202.
- Matreja PS, et al. Indian J Tuberc. 2023;70(4):409-415.
- Liu Q, et al. Hum Vaccin Immunother. 2025;21(1):2530831.
- Chen H, et al. Expert Opin Drug Saf. 2025;24(8):959-967.
- Giacon M, Terrazzino S. Headache. 2026;66(5):1128-1147.
- Mishra HP, Gupta R. Curr Rev Clin Exp Pharmacol. 2025;20(2):89-97.
About the Author
Michael W. Young is the principal healthcare strategist for Sparks. He leads biomedwoRx: Life Sciences Consulting, a strategic advisory firm working at the intersection of clinical strategy and commercialization for biotechnology, pharmaceutical, diagnostic, medical-device, and clinical-software organizations worldwide. He has received several industry and association awards and brings more than two decades of biopharmaceutical leadership experience, including senior commercial roles at Eisai, Ligand Pharmaceuticals, GSK, Bayer, PPD, PAREXEL, and Klick Health. Michael also serves as a board director for HCEA, the Healthcare Convention and Exhibitors Association.
