Case Study — South Korean Patients with Esophageal Cancer — Oncology & Gene Therapy

Challenges

Patients will likely have established relationships with their treating physicians. Therefore, accessing referring physician networks and patient panels will be critical for success.
Family members are typically involved in the patient’s care, and it will be important to engage their interest.
During campaign development, there were unexpected operational adjustments (e.g., changes to outreach tactics and the physician-facing study website) that required a flexible response.
During deployment, the sponsor requested that timelines be accelerated by two weeks — reducing the full amount of time to generate referrals.

Solutions and Impact

Leveraging BBK’s network of Korean physicians who specialize in esophageal cancer, BBK identified, evaluated and reached out to 105 physicians with direct-to-physician emails. Additionally, we conducted 157 phone calls with Korean physicians and site staff to raise awareness for the study and to encourage referrals.

In just six weeks, the physician website had 47 unique visitors. 27 physicians expressed interest in referring 1 or more of their patients to the study, exceeding expectations.