Insights from the 2025 European Meeting of ISMPP

The International Society for Medical Publication Professionals welcomed hundreds of attendees to its European conference in London in January. Inizio Medical was there to hear from other experts and explore themes ranging from AI and storytelling to greater patient involvement in congresses. Here’s a round-up of the standout from Sarah Jane Rutherford, Tom McMurray, Stephanie Pruden, Krupa O’Neil and Paul Barlass.

Artificial intelligence

Exploring the use of AI

Unsurprisingly, AI was one of the hot topics at this year’s ISMPP EU conference. In this session, attendees looked at the common approaches pharma and biotech companies have taken to adopting AI. Exploring AI requires an active interest in experimentation, and it’s best to start with small tasks and low-risk projects, such as literature searches and digestible topic overviews.

As with all experimentation, trial and error is necessary. From this, gained knowledge can be shared among colleagues as they make discoveries, which in turn can help to shape more formal and structured training.

When it comes to larger, more complex AI tasks, such as drafting full manuscripts, careful thought has to be given to processes and agreements, to build the confidence of key stakeholders and take into account challenges such as accuracy. AI outputs still need a thorough human review – and in our view always will – from an experienced medical writer with an appropriate level of therapy knowledge.

On a practical level, whether companies take the approach of building in-house AI systems or working with external vendors, there are many factors to take into consideration. These include the most appropriate levels of investment and resources, sufficiently transparent and secure practices, and how internal and external IT systems will interface.

AI beyond content creation

While much of ISMPP EU 2025 focused on the role of AI in creating content, one roundtable encouraged participants to think about wider uses, particularly concerning routine tasks.

Ideas included:

• Building knowledge: AI is good at quickly providing an overview of a given topic (such as a particular therapy area) and can generate reasonable coaching materials.
• Idea generation: AI can kick start the creative process, suggesting ideas and helping people get past the daunting blank-page stage.
• Project management: AI could support teams by creating documents such as preliminary project timelines.
• Information collation: AI can rapidly pull together information on things like specific markets, congresses, and journals.
• Email and calendar management: As Copilot becomes integrated with calendars and email apps, AI can help with a whole range of time-saving tasks, such as scheduling meetings and recovering archived messages.

Participants agreed that AI is still not 100% accurate, and not good at self-checking. The quickest wins are tasks, where pretty good is good enough. With a bit of imagination and experimentation, we can make more effective use of our time by delegating routine, non-mission-critical tasks to an AI helper.

Collaborating with authors on the use of AI in publication development

AI continues to evolve at a rapid pace, making it imperative to understand how to effectively, transparently, and ethically integrate the technology into the way we develop publications. Authors, pharma companies, medical communications agencies, and publishers all need to collaborate to agree a framework for achieving this.

It’s important that authors in particular are informed enough to fully understand the implications of using AI or accepting AI assistance.

Tips for using AI in publication development include:

• Communicate early how AI is to be used and how accuracy can be ensure
• Obtain agreement from all parties involved.
• Confirm target journal and their AI guidelines.
• Make use of the ISMPP checklist and other tools / resources.

Patient engagement

Greater patient inclusion in scientific conferences

Patient involvement should not be mere tokenism. A lived experience is expertise, so patients shouldn’t just be included in conferences – they should be leading the conversations.

When patients have a seat at the table, ISMPP delegates were told, they drive meaningful change in research, policy, and care, influencing treatment landscapes.

It’s easy to say that regulations limit patient participation in conferences, but in reality there are many opportunities for patients to contribute in powerful ways. As professionals, it’s up to us to do the hard work to make it happen and ensure data is translated in a way that reflects patient priorities and experiences.

Making meetings better for all

Improving the patient experience at medical congresses creates a sense of belonging and community, increasing attendance and engagement.

Ways to achieve this include consulting with patients on the things that matter to them, such as providing dedicated quiet areas to rest, making congresses physically more accessible, and reducing costs for their carers. There’s also an opportunity to make posters more accessible, both digitally and non-digitally.

Empowering patient voices in authorship

As well as an elevated involvement in scientific conferences, patients should also have an equal voice in publications. Yet despite their invaluable lived experiences, they often don’t receive the same recognition as researchers and physicians. For true collaboration, we must all understand the unique value patients bring to publications and how their perspectives enhance impact.

It’s important to note, however, that the publications journey can be overwhelming, so patients will require ongoing guidance and support.

Publications

Finding the story in data

As publication professionals, our job is to effectively and clearly communicate complex data to the right audiences, in the right way, at the right time. The art of storytelling is essential to achieving this, but key points can often be lost when there’s an overload of complex data.

Finding a balance is critical and this comes down to how information is presented. Writers should ensure the main points are displayed clearly and simply, while using carefully chosen images, graphics, and interactive elements to present more complex details in an impactful way.

Sustaining publication quality in a fast-paced world 

Many stakeholders are increasingly expecting or requiring clinical data to be published quickly. So how do you achieve this while ensuring a high level of quality?

Recommendations ISMPP delegates picked up include:

• Secure early buy-in from all stakeholders with clear expectations and deadlines.
• Engage with the target journal early on and maintain contact throughout manuscript development – this can help with a faster review.
• Ensure compliant and timely data sharing and align with Good Publication Practice guidelines.
• Create as detailed an outline as possible – this will be the most time-intensive part of manuscript development.
• Ensure all authors and sufficient time to review, even under an expedited timeline
• Hold live review calls to quickly secure agreement and approval.
• Consider appropriate use of AI tools, ensure all authors agree, and disclose use at submission.

Shaping the future of publication metrics

There are many metrics to measure publications, but they have limitations and rarely answer the exact questions we have about an article’s impact, reach, or success. Currently, metrics are inconsistent across publishers, with targets chosen based on the amount of metric information available. Tailored metrics are therefore needed, depending on the objective of the article and whether it’s accompanied by a publication extender.

Some pharma companies have stated that they don’t currently use publication metrics; rather, they’re more interested in whether the publication is used in the field with HCPs. This information bypasses publishers but could be gathered.

A high impact factor is often important for authors and publication of phase 3 data; however, an article in a journal with a lower impact factor may in fact get more impact, achieve more reach, and generate more publication extenders.

To tackle this, some publishers are using a purpose-built platform to generate an ‘expected score’, which shows how a particular submission might perform in different journals. This provides a more educated guess on the best journal to submit to. The platform takes into account social listening and impact on treatment guidelines before producing a score relative to other publications in that therapy area or versus competitor product publications.

Another concern is that journals / publishers often rely on citations as a measure of performance. However, citations build over time, and there’s currently no correlation between citations and the impact a publication has in medicine and product use.

Featuring QR codes on posters at congresses has now become a matter of quantity over quality, and many believe they’re having less impact than they once did. It’s argued that QR codes should only be used when when they enable people to access something valuable. Congresses should also track the interest in abstracts up to the time of the meeting and then that data should be available in terms of downloads.

Guidelines for real-world evidence (RWE) publications

A lack of guidance for RWE publications within GPP can result in delays, one ISMPP session argued. Clearer guidelines on robust study design and methodology can help to ensure timely publication and combat the misperception that RWE is less impactful than clinical trial data.

RWE methodologies are diverse and can be more difficult to interpret. Supporting the use of established frameworks (such as those listed on the EQUATOR-Network STROBE) can help authors develop clear, consistent submissions that have a greater impact.

In addition, formalizing the inclusion of RWE teams in the integrated evidence generation process and publication plan can help all stakeholders consider the role of RWE within the broader medical strategy.

How Inizio Medical can help

ISMPP EU 2025 was a thought-provoking event that explored many of the issues and challenges we’ve long considered here at Inizio Medical.  As a publication powerhouse, we are passionate about supporting the development of materials which bring complex science to life in an engaging, impactful way. We ensure quality and timely delivery, and always have patients and the impact that the data has on their lives at the heart of what we do.

We are no stranger to AI, having been at the forefront of its development in Medical Affairs since 2016. Since then, we’ve worked with clients at every stage of their AI journey, helping them explore its potential, navigate barriers to adoption, and benefit from a range of tools that deliver smarter insights and accelerate content development. Discover more AI insights from Patrick Girodani, Vice President, AI Solutions Architect, Inizio Medical as he reports back on the evolving role of AI in medical communications, including its benefits, challenges, and future impact here.