2 min read
Connect with Veristat at Bio International Convention 2026
June 22-25, 2026 – San Diego, CA
🌎 Bringing the Global Biopharma Community Together
We’re delighted to be attending...
2 min read
Would your drug development program benefit from partnering with experts in scientific and medical communications and publications? Perhaps we should first address what exactly scientific and medical communications and publishing entail.
As medical writers with decades of experience, we can say that every day holds unique, intellectually rigorous challenges. Our work includes the following:
-
Publication planning
-
Providing advice on scientific journal selection and congress participation
-
Writing abstracts, posters, and manuscripts
-
Coordinating and incorporating author feedback on draft documents
-
Submitting manuscripts to journals, and abstracts and posters to congresses
-
Developing responses to journal reviewer comments on submitted manuscripts
Sometimes, we do all these things in a single day!
Medical Publishing
Clinical and nonclinical researchers publish their work in peer-reviewed journals and as posters and presentations at congresses. These are our forums for communicating research findings to other scientists, healthcare professionals, and patients. Sharing evidence that demonstrates that a new therapy helps patients is exciting!
New treatments or treatments with improved safety/efficacy can’t help patients until prescribers learn your results. And that is what a medical publications professional does every day.
Scientific Communication
Communicating new data can be a daunting experience, and it should be! The transparent, accurate, and timely communication of medical information is key to drug development.
Industry guidelines specify what to report, when to report, and authorship, among other things. The guidelines help ensure that research findings can be independently confirmed. Good Publication Practices (GPP3), ICMJE recommendations, and CONSORT are some of the published guidelines that medical publication professionals follow when developing projects.
Some days, we are helping to update the publication guidelines. For example, experienced medical publication professionals provided input for the GPP3 update.
Publications Process
Adherence to industry guidelines and the publications process (Figure 1) helps to ensure the development of quality publications. From concept to publication, a medical publications professional supports you throughout the process. With our wealth of experience with clinical research in different therapeutic areas, with different types of journals, and with diverse authoring teams, we streamline the process. On any given day, a writer might support 1 or all 12 steps from concept to publication.
Publication Planning
Medical publication professionals also help you get to the concept stage of publication writing (i.e., tactical execution) by working with you on publication planning. Publication professionals think about and do publication planning every day including:
-
Developing key messages for a clinical development program
Determining the timing of data disclosures to congresses and development of related manuscripts
Selecting a journal based on the desired audience, time to publication, and journal impact
Matching the right writer to a given project
Developing a plan for review of disclosures within a drug development company
Planning is the most important part of our job. Thinking ahead, anticipating the next steps, and adhering to timelines underpins everything we do. This planning is critical to the successful execution of a publication plan.
The Veristat Team
We have a great team of medical publication professionals who are also highly skilled at project and time management. Many of us are also Document Quality Checkers. So sometimes our workday involves reading, reviewing, and editing documents developed by other writers. We review our documents’ grammar, spelling, and accuracy so that our clients can have confidence in their quality.
We also regularly share knowledge, learnings, and best practices with each other on the Veristat Medical Publications team. Each member of our team of professionals brings a unique perspective and passion for medical publications writing.
We come to work every day eager to learn new things and support the publication of clinical data to enhance patient care. Hopefully, this description of a day in the life of a medical publications professional has illustrated how the Veristat team can support your program’s scientific communication needs.
This blog was originally published on June 1, 2022. It was updated on July 19, 2024.
About the authors
Amy Porter, PhD, ISMPP CMPP™
Amy is a pharmacologist/toxicologist/ADME scientist by training, with medical writing expertise across therapeutic areas and has developed numerous publications based on PK/PD modeling and simulation reports. She serves as a functional lead implementing publication plans.
Holly Capasso-Harris, PhD, ISMPP CMPP™
Holly holds a PhD in cell and molecular pharmacology and more than 20 years of experience in medical writing and as an editor. She has written over 100 abstracts, posters, and manuscripts based on preclinical and clinical data in a wide range of therapeutic areas.
