With Its Robust Compliance Solutions, MediSpend is Managing High-Risk Business Functions for Life Sciences Companies

It is a very challenging task to navigate through the complex compliance world of life sciences. For a business to succeed in this industry, it is very important to comply with all the rules and regulations on top of marketing and selling their products. By failing to comply with the ever-changing regulations, businesses will have to deal with serious consequences, including debarments, fines and criminal prosecution. Experts are now recommending that life sciences companies partner with a trusted compliance solution provider to monitor the program and assess business practices to avoid compliance violations proactively.

Globally, there are various companies delivering compliance solutions for the life sciences segment, but MediSpend stands out from the rest, providing excellent solutions, top-rated client services and demonstrating themselves as a trusted compliance partner. MediSpend is a global technology company providing best-in-class solutions that enable life science companies to compliantly manage high-risk business functions through top-rated software and client services. MediSpend is the compliance system of record for some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical, medical device, dental and emerging biotech companies around the world. The MediSpend Global Compliance Suite represents the industry’s first global SaaS solution purpose-built to manage the end-to-end process of healthcare professional (HCP) engagement through transparency reporting, which includes software that facilitates external grant requests.

In conversation with Craig Hauben, CEO of MediSpend

Q. How has compliance management evolved throughout the years? What are the anticipated trends in this segment?

During this unpredictable time, life sciences companies have demanded reliability from the solutions they utilize. MediSpend aims to make compliance simple and reliable, giving life sciences companies one less thing to stress about. Life sciences companies require innovative, intuitive and easy-to-use software solutions to meet their needs. They require that any software solution, and especially SaaS-based ones, are developed to meet the vast majority of their functional needs out of the box before they will be willing to use it. They prefer more configuration and less customization. Furthermore, they also want to make sure that third-party SaaS solutions meet stringent data privacy and security protocols and that the organization that is providing the solution has the subject matter expertise needed to support their complex needs.

Q. How can companies benefit from your solutions?

Our strategy here starts with keeping our focus on making our clients successful, not what our competition is saying and doing. By focusing on what our clients need and want, we stay in tune with the broader needs of the market, and can stay ahead of our competition:

• We lead with our team of industry experts. They advise companies who are preparing to launch their first product all the way to complex, global organizations that are industry leaders.
• The MediSpend Global Compliance Suite was purpose-built with the end user in mind. It delivers a simplified user interface and has often been cited as more intuitive than competitive offerings. Modern technology developments and intuitive user interface aids in quick user adoption and continuous engagement with the platform.
• MediSpend has a robust Partner Program. Our partners continue to complement MediSpend solutions through innovative technology, professional and advisory services. By continually strengthening the Partner Program, MediSpend enhances client value and success through integrated and market-leading solutions and services. MediSpend’s Partner Program recognizes strategic organizations that offer services that complement the MediSpend portfolio and have demonstrated excellence in ensuring mutual client success.
• Focused on what our clients need, we developed our Legislative Watch, which provides free summaries of global transparency reporting and HCP engagement requirements.
• MediSpend’s Client Services team provides full-service access and solutions to address client needs throughout the year for all their initiatives associated with compliantly managing high-risk business functions, which are primary how life science companies engage with healthcare providers. Through monthly meetings with clients, the MediSpend Client Services team consistently receives high ratings from our clients.

Q. Firms and corporations are crossing international borders and expanding across the globe through mergers, acquisitions, consolidation and collaboration with foreign entities. How does your solution adapt to the change?

MediSpend’s legal team has a wealth of industry experience and touchpoints around the world. Our legal experts have compiled summaries of reporting requirements from the United States, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. Life sciences companies are no stranger to the challenges of staying on top of ever-changing regulations and never-ending reporting deadlines. Keeping up with this industry can be stressful. MediSpend experts compiled the Legislative Watch, a free repository of global reporting requirements that is available on the MediSpend website. It provides information related to global transparency reporting laws and regulations for pharmaceutical and medical device companies concerning transfers of value to HCPs and healthcare organizations (HCOs). It also includes summaries of relevant codes and regulations governing HCP engagements as well as links to the corresponding materials.

Q. Tell us more about MediSpend’s Global Suite of solutions.

The MediSpend Global Compliance Suite consists of a modular suite of SaaS-based solutions designed to enable our customers to drive their businesses while having the right compliance checks along the way. Our products include Engagement Manager, Transparency Solution, Grants Manager, Study Manager and Insights, which showcases our analytical capabilities via dashboard reporting, ad-hoc and self-service analytics to help clients identify areas of attention. Together, these products represent a unified, end-to-end solution specifically designed to address global regulatory compliance laws across the life sciences industry.

• Engagement Manager is a global compliance solution with embedded compliance controls designed to identify and mitigate risk associated with HCP engagements. Engagement Manager will help your organization manage the end-to-end engagement lifecycle on a SaaS-based platform.
• Transparency Solution collects, validates, remediates, analyzes and reports transfers of value to comply with state, federal and global transparency laws and codes.
• Grants Manager facilitates internal and external funding and product requests through a secure portal ensuring seamless communication, the ability to track and report out on the workflow, and a more effective and efficient process.
• Study Manager is a compliance solution designed for non-pharmaceutical company researchers to request, track and manage investigator initiated clinical studies-trials (IIS/IIT).
• Insights provides integrated, real-time data to users within the MediSpend application. Responsive dashboards make data available on any internet-enabled device, provide direct links to source system data and alerts to compliance risks. Furthermore, life science companies are now provided with the analytics they need to predict issues before they occur.

Q. What does the future hold for your company and its customers? Are exciting things on the way? Do you have any new services ready to be launched?

MediSpend recently received a majority growth investment from Susquehanna Growth Equity (SGE), an entrepreneur-centric growth equity firm exclusively focused on software and information services companies. SGE’s investment will accelerate and support MediSpend’s product and client expansion across the broader life sciences industry. SGE’s partnership with MediSpend promotes enhancements across the company as we expand our product offering. With this new partnership, MediSpend is accelerating its roadmap and innovation which will allow us to expand global coverage and add data services to our portfolio. For example, we will be announcing new data and KOL engagement solutions in the coming months that will enable life sciences companies to compliantly engage with all stakeholders, leveraging data embedded into a more robust end-to-end compliant engagement solution. This includes major enhancements to the already popular Engagement Manager solution.

Meet the leader behind the success of MediSpend

Craig Hauben, CEO, brought a wealth of leadership experience to MediSpend. Craig has led large sales and operations teams through high growth and turn-arounds. He has been a stabilizing force that has the management team and the whole company focused on their customers and becoming a great company. Craig’s vision has been critical. In a very short period of time, he has been able to survey the market, diagnose MediSpend product strengths and create a long-term roadmap for a product set that is unique in the industry. The entire team is energized around this vision and the journey that MediSpend is on.

“Purpose-built solutions designed to enable life sciences companies to compliantly manage high-risk business functions”