Background
Scientific congress projects often involve multiple rounds of content development, review and approval, all within relatively short timeframes. While slide content may be developed during the day by agency and client teams, tasks such as reference checking, claim substantiation and Veeva PromoMats linking still need to be completed before materials can progress to the next stage.
For agencies supporting pharmaceutical and healthcare clients, maintaining that momentum can be challenging when teams are working within a single time zone. Work often pauses at the end of the day, leaving limited time to complete detailed scientific review activities before the next review cycle begins.
A long-standing agency partner approached Elion to provide medical writing support across three congress and educational slide decks, helping extend productivity beyond UK working hours and keeping projects moving forward overnight.
The Brief
The client required rapid-turnaround support reviewing, referencing and Veeva-linking three scientific slide decks ahead of formal review.
The decks contained a high volume of clinical data, study outcomes and scientific claims, all of which needed to be checked against the supporting references. The client also wanted an additional layer of scientific review to identify any statements that could be more accurately aligned to the cited evidence.
Alongside Veeva PromoMats linking, the objective was to ensure that claims were appropriately substantiated, references were mapped correctly and any potential issues were identified before the decks entered review.
Our Solution
Working as an extension of the agency team, Elion provided overnight medical writing support from New Zealand while the UK team was offline. The team reviewed each deck slide by slide, assessing whether the cited references supported the claims being made and whether the wording accurately reflected the underlying evidence. Where required, Elion provided recommendations to improve alignment between slide content and source publication.
The Elion review included:
- Scientific reviewing of claims against cited references
- Mapping claims to supporting evidence
- Identifying claims that were only partially supported by the cited reference
- Recommending revised wording where greater alignment with the evidence was needed
- Veeva PromoMats linking and anchoring
- Reference checking and formatting review
- General slide proofreading and quality control
By the time the agency team returned to work each morning, updated decks, review comments and completed Veeva linking were ready for handover. This created an efficient workflow across time zones and allowed progress to continue outside standard UK working hours.
Outcomes
Created a near 24-hour workflow
By working across UK and New Zealand time zones, Elion was able to complete review and Veeva preparation activities while the agency team was offline. Each morning, completed work was ready for handover, helping projects progress without waiting for the next working day.
Reduced pressure on internal teams
By taking ownership of the Veeva PromoMats linking and review process, Elion provided additional specialist resource exactly where it was needed, allowing agency team members to remain focused on client-facing activities and content development.
Added an additional layer of scientific quality control
Alongside Veeva PromoMats linking, Elion reviewed references and supporting evidence, highlighting areas where claims could be more closely aligned to source materials and providing practical recommendations where required.
Delivered review-ready slide decks
All three slide decks were reviewed, linked and prepared for formal review within the required timelines, helping the agency maintain momentum across multiple concurrent projects.
Looking ahead
As scientific content continues to be developed and reviewed across global teams, the ability to work effectively across time zones offers clear advantages.
Elion’s Global presence allows us to provide seamless support to agency and industry partners in Europe, the UK and North America, helping projects progress while local teams are offline. Combined with deep medical writing expertise, this approach enables clients to access additional resource when they need it, without disrupting existing workflows.
