KOL Engagement Strategy and Planning

Find the right KOL for your programme
01
The challenge

The problem with most KOL engagement

Most teams already have a list of experts to engage with. What they often lack is a clear plan for how, when, and why.
Running engagement activities is rarely the problem. Designing a strategy that genuinely supports the programme's objectives is far less common.

Teams end up running the same activities with the same experts year after year, even when those interactions add little to scientific or strategic progress.

We help Medical Affairs and Product teams translate their objectives into clear, practical, and defensible engagement strategies aligned to product development, launch, and post-launch execution.

What we see most often
KOL engagement is rarely short of activity. It is often short of clarity.

Teams frequently come to us with:

Broad KOL lists and no prioritisation by purpose

Activities that do not map clearly to product phase or objectives

Multiple functions engaging the same experts without coordination

Difficulty explaining why activities are being run or how success will be measured

Effective KOL engagement should reflect the scientific and strategic priorities of the programme. The product lifecycle matters here: different stages of development create different questions, risks, and evidence priorities.

Find out more
02
What we do

We design clear, practical KOL engagement strategies

Central to our strategies is the KHC KOL engagement Milestone Model™, developed through years of supporting product teams across development and launch. It structures expert interaction across the product lifecycle so that engagement is purposeful, well-timed, and aligned with the evolving needs of the programme.

Our role is to translate scientific and product objectives into a structured engagement plan. We work from your medical, product, and launch objectives, your understanding of the disease area, and your existing or proposed KOL list to produce a strategy that defines:

Which engagement activities to run
Which KOLs to involve
When engagements should occur
Which internal teams lead each interaction
The purpose of each activity
How success will be measured
03
in practice

Our approach to KOL engagement planning

With over 20 years’ experience leading KOL engagement programmes, our approach is grounded in the real world, reflecting best practice across the industry.

Our Senior Leadership Team leads projects from start to finish. We know how to approach each project, regardless of complexity.

View case study

Our approach to KOL engagement planning

With over 20 years’ experience leading KOL engagement programmes, our approach is grounded in the real world, reflecting best practice across the industry.

Our Senior Leadership Team leads projects from start to finish. We know how to approach each project, regardless of complexity.

View case study
Start with your goals

We begin by understanding where your product sits in its lifecycle, what success looks like for your Medical Affairs and Product teams, and which risks, uncertainties, or evidence gaps engagement needs to address.

Engagement is designed to serve strategy, not the other way around.

Plan engagement across the product lifecycle

Different stages of development create different scientific, evidence, and stakeholder challenges. Effective KOL engagement reflects those differences.

Our KOL engagement milestone model helps teams plan how expert engagement should evolve across development and launch milestones, while staying adaptable to the scientific and strategic context of each programme.

The model spans the full lifecycle:

  • Early development
  • Pre-launch
  • Launch
  • Post-launch

At each stage, engagement is designed to address the questions most relevant at that point: generating scientific insight, shaping evidence strategy, strengthening investigator relationships, or enabling effective scientific exchange.

Activities may include advisory boards, scientific exchange discussions, investigator and steering engagements, educational interactions, and networking at medical conferences.

Match activities to the right KOLs

Not every expert on a KOL list is suited to every type of engagement. We allocate experts to activities based on their profile, expertise, and the strategic purpose of each interaction.

This avoids the common pattern of defaulting to the same senior KOLs for everything and helps teams get the right expertise for their programme. 

Define success clearly

Success criteria are built into the plan from the start. That makes it easier to assess whether engagement is achieving its purpose and to course-correct when it is not.

Working with existing strategies

Not every engagement comes to us at the planning stage. We work with teams who have existing engagement frameworks that need stress-testing, programmes that have drifted from their original objectives, and organisations reviewing how their KOL investment is structured. We can review what is in place, identify where clarity is lacking, and recommend practical adjustments.

Let's discuss your engagement programme

If you would like to talk through your current engagement approach, or start planning from scratch, we are happy to have an initial conversation.

Discuss your engagement programme

Joe Kendle

Client Services Director

Joe is a cornerstone of Kendle Healthcare, embodying mastery, experience, insight and integrity in everything he delivers.

With more than ten years of experience in KOL Identification and Mapping, Joe’s relationship with Kendle Healthcare began at its foundation. As a university student, he worked on the company’s very first project, gaining early and lasting insight into its standards, values and ambition. That continuity gives him a deep understanding of not just what we do, but why we do it.

After six years in secondary education, Joe returned to healthcare consultancy with a distinctive skill set. His teaching background sharpened his ability to communicate complex ideas with clarity and calm authority. Clients value his measured approach, thoughtful questioning and ability to bring structure to complexity.

Joe’s particular expertise lies in translating technology into meaningful strategic insight. He has been instrumental in advancing the use of Network Mapping within KOL engagement, ensuring that influence is understood in context rather than in isolation. His work combines analytical rigour with practical application, turning data into decisions clients can act on with confidence.

Beyond his professional role, Joe demonstrates integrity through sustained philanthropic commitment. He has raised significant funds for charity through endurance challenges, reflecting resilience, discipline and a strong sense of social responsibility.

Neil Kendle

Managing Director

Neil is more than Managing Director. He is the driving force behind Kendle Healthcare’s standards of mastery, insight and integrity.

With more than three decades of healthcare consultancy experience, Neil brings a depth of understanding that only time and immersion can build. His background as both a Medical Science Liaison and a Brand Manager gives him a rare dual perspective. He understands the priorities of medical professionals and the pressures facing commercial and marketing teams, allowing him to bridge strategy and science with credibility and clarity.

Neil has helped shape the modern healthcare consultancy landscape. He pioneered many of the industry’s established approaches to opinion leader identification and engagement, setting benchmarks that others have since followed. His work has always been grounded in rigorous thinking, ethical practice and a commitment to doing things properly, not simply quickly.

Under his leadership, Kendle Healthcare has earned its reputation for thoughtful strategy, precise execution and trusted partnerships. Clients value his judgement because it is informed by experience, sharpened by insight and guided by integrity.

Outside of work, Neil is a dedicated golfer, a passion he has pursued for more than 25 years. The discipline and focus the game demands mirror the qualities he brings to his professional life: patience, precision and a long term view.