Over the last few years, I have worked to help discovery scientists within the pharmaceutical and biotech industries make persuasive scientific presentations in order to sell their ideas for new drugs to decision makers.

The challenges were many.  Often, scientists had to report to their bosses in Europe via video conference.  The image projected in Switzerland was a wide-angle shot of six people sitting at a table in New Jersey.  It was difficult to know which person was talking.

English was being spoken in a variety of accents. America is blessed to have brilliant people from all over the globe come to work in our pharmaceutical and biotech industries, but understanding each person, on both sides of the Atlantic, through a wire thousands of miles long, was a continual challenge.

When English is spoken as a second language, it is often delivered in the pitch pattern and rhythm of the first language, which makes it hard for us Americans to grasp, and perhaps even harder for those who come from yet another country and whose first language is different from that of the speaker.

Sensitive cultural issues arose. In some European cultures, one does not tell a senior scientist overseeing a vast number of crucial experiments that his presentations are incomprehensible. One calls on a consultant to say such things, if in fact the scientist in question agrees to meet with the consultant.

And then there’s the problem of the traditional approach to scientific communication. The language, form, and conventions of published scientific papers- which spill over into scientific presentations- could almost have been devised to conceal information.

Even in conversation, scientists use words that are perfectly ordinary within science but are simply never heard at a bar, dinner party, or on the side of a soccer field. When speaking to marketers, scientists have to learn to stand back from their own work and see it as strangers might.

They need to ask themselves what is the most significant thing about their research? Is it that they can’t account for 70% of the efficacy since the mechanism of action is unknown? What is the detail, the issue, the problem that will make most people sit up and pay attention?

Many distinguished scientists- Richard Feynmann, J.B.S. Haldane, and Peter Medawar among them- knew how to hold a popular audience, and they weren’t afraid to address their peers with the same vividness and economy. In fact, their fame became inseparable from their gift for words.

Scientists can be great communicators. Carl Sagan, Primo Levi, E.O. Wilson were (are) great examples. They each had the engaging quality of enthusiasm, and enthusiasm is derived from a Greek term that means divinely intoxicated.

In order to be useful to their companies, and to society, scientists must be able to sell their ideas. Most scientists can think clearly. Many can write clearly. Fewer are spellbinding on the presentation platform, but thoughts that are clearly expressed, especially in live meetings, have greater potential value, and bring credit to the presenter.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

We carefully packed the sculptures in our suitcases when we returned from Africa, using our dirty clothes to cushion them from damage.  Leave it to the airlines to outsmart us and find the weak spots in our preparation.  When we got home, three of the sculptures were broken.

No problem.  A little SuperGlue, and now, from a distance, they look fine. 

It’s not so easy with a presentation. I recently worked on an Advisory Board presentation at the FDA.  We worked hard to locate the weak spots in our data, prepared arguments to stress the appealing risk/benefit profile, and told our story to the distinguished physicians on the board.

Leave it to those who treat the patients on the front line to find the weak spots in our argument, and send us packing to get more data to ensure the safety of those they treat.

It’s hard to protect the weak spots.  Perhaps no amount of packing could have saved our African sculptures from damage, given the mauling they were destined to get on their way to the States.  Similarly, perhaps no amount of back-filling argumentation could have saved us from the weakness in our data, given the bruising skepticism of physicians entrusted with the public interest. 

I believe wishful thinking plays a part in these two episodes.  My wife and I were exhausted at the end of our trip.  We had too many bags. They were overweight.  We had to fit the sculptures in the best we could.  We crossed our fingers, and hoped.

On the professional side, my clients and I may have brought wishful thinking to the FDA as well. We were desperate for a new compound to be approved: the company had not had a winner in a long time.  We saw a chance that this new one might get over the hurdles.  We made the commitment, ratcheted up our belief, and began to prepare.  The train left the station, and once it was rolling, we had to keep believing, even when weak spots emerged.

The day arrived, we did our best, but a jury of our peers poked a hole in our claim that the drug’s benefits outweighed its risks. 

Back to the drawing boards we go…for a couple of years.  It takes more than SuperGlue to fix a clinical trial.  

Sims Wyeth is an executive speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

I recently had the privilege of sitting through four investigator meetings, two in the United States and two in Europe. 

They comprised speaker after speaker with slide after slide.  Topics included the disease, the drug, the PK, the efficacy and safety, statistical modeling, and then the process by which patients were to be enrolled and cared for throughout the study.

Occasionally, at the end of a presentation, the speaker would ask multiple choice questions about the topic just covered, and the audience could select an answer using a remote control response device.  The percentage of correct answers ranged from a high of 70% to a low of 35%.

One of the key scientific presentations was delivered by a young doctor with a foreign accent, her hair in her face, and a specialty in another disease state.  She was hesitant, focused primarily on her notes, and unsuccessful in creating any excitement or passion for the long and arduous assignment the investigators had in front of them.

Another similar problem occurred with the presentation delivered by the statistician who had devised the null hypothesis and necessary endpoints for the study.  He had a severe foreign accent, spoke extremely quickly, and although he was appealing and expressive, was for the most part unintelligible.  I surveyed about five people after his talk and they all complained that they could not understand a word he said.

Some of the other speakers were quite effective, in that they stated their objective at the start, showed an agenda slide, and then marched the audience through a slide deck with varying degrees of energy, volume, and personality. 

Each meeting lasted two days, even though the investigators themselves only needed to be there for the first day, while their assistants did in fact need to be there for both days.

The sponsor is no doubt obliged to document that a meeting was held, and that thorough and precise instruction was given.  But might the sponsor accomplish more than checking the regulatory “tick box” and actually create real learning, while at the same time creating a strong attachment to their company within a community of influential doctors?

We all know that a process such as the one described above is not optimal for teaching adults how to do something.  Adults actually need to “do” what they are being asked to learn, in addition to listening to instruction and reading slides. 

Adults need to practice active problem solving, engage in role plays and case studies, and participate in debate.  Hands-on learning gets better results and better reviews.

It’s time to get creative with investigator meetings. 

Sims Wyeth is an executive speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.