Cross-Border Insights: Surveying US and Canadian Otolaryngologists on Rare Disease Awareness

THE PROBLEM:

Go-to-market insights

A top US pharmaceutical company wanted to explore the knowledge gaps and needs among Otolaryngologists (ENTs) simultaneously in Canada and the US, while understanding potential intersections with current treatment utilization.

The Solution:

On-Demand Insights To Guide Marketing Strategies

KeyOps co-created a study to gauge Otolaryngologists’ experience recognizing, diagnosing and treating a rare disease.

A total of 70 otolaryngologists were surveyed including 50 from the US and 20 from Canada. KeyOps created a new community of US and Canadian Otolaryngologists in the Fall of 2024 for the pharmaceutical client to leverage right before the holidays.

KeyOps' process in vetting participants included individual verification for security purposes, and validation of an active Canadian or US practice license.

The Outcome:

“Very interesting to see quite a few ENTs coming across [rare disease] patients, I would say the number was higher than expected” says Medical Affairs Manager.

The client better understood differences between urban and rural Otolaryngologist knowledge gaps and practices.

80% of Otolaryngologists sampled had encountered a patient with the rare disease, demonstrating that awareness and diagnosis were higher than expected.

Frequency of infections and symptom improvement were the most common parameters for assessing the efficacy of therapy.

Entering a new disease state area, the pharmaceutical client was able to make data driven decisions around sales and marketing messaging for their respective markets.

The outcome of the survey not only helped educate Otolaryngologists about their treatment as an option, but about how to identify the appropriate patient as well. 

As a bonus, the pharmaceutical client was also able to capture consent to potentially include responses in academic research and publish in a future academic peer-reviewed journal. 

This case study was published anonymously to protect the competitive intelligence of our client.