A scientific platform, also called a scientific communication platform (SCP), is the internal document in which a pharmaceutical, biotech, or medical device company sets out the core scientific statements it can make about a product or disease area, the evidence that supports each one, and the language to use when making them. It is written by medical affairs, usually with publications, HEOR, clinical, and commercial input, and every team that communicates about the science draws on it. It is not shown to customers. It is the source that publications, slide decks, training, and medical information responses are built from.
Quick answer: The Medical Affairs Professional Society (MAPS) describes four core parts of a scientific communication platform: communication objectives, a hierarchy of scientific statements (primary, secondary, and tertiary), a scientific summary, and a lexicon of approved terms. Each statement is tied to its references. The platform is built through a structured process that starts with a gap analysis, and it is kept current as new data, competitors, and guidelines arrive.
The public summary of the MAPS Scientific Communication Platform standards and guidance lists four core components.
The communication objectives say what the company needs the scientific community to understand, such as the unmet need in a disease, how a mechanism works, or what the trial program showed. The scientific statements are the heart of the platform. They are arranged in a hierarchy: a small number of primary statements, often grouped into pillars, each supported by more specific secondary and tertiary statements. Every statement carries the references that support it.
The scientific summary gives the narrative that connects the statements, so a reader understands the story the evidence tells. The lexicon sets the approved terms, such as how to name the disease, the mechanism, the endpoints, and the patient population, so the same concept is described the same way in every document and every country.
A scientific platform keeps the company's science consistent across functions that would otherwise write their own versions. Publication teams use it to plan manuscripts and congress abstracts. Speakers at the 2020 European meeting of ISMPP, the society for medical publication professionals, said publication teams should be involved in building the platform from the start, as reported by The Publication Plan.
Medical communications teams build slide decks and educational materials from it, a link covered in the glossary entry on medical communications. MSLs are trained on it before scientific exchange. Medical information teams use it to keep standard responses aligned. Statements that appear in promotional materials still go through MLR review, but reviewers can work faster when the claim and its reference already exist in the platform.
The terms overlap and are sometimes used interchangeably. In most companies the scientific platform is the structured foundation: statements, references, and lexicon. A scientific narrative is the story told from it, often for a particular audience or meeting. A publication plan schedules the manuscripts and congress presentations that will put the evidence behind the statements into the peer-reviewed record.
Some statements describe what the company expects the evidence to show once ongoing studies report. Those aspirational statements are useful for planning but cannot be used externally until a published reference supports them. The gaps between what the company wants to say and what it can support also feed the integrated evidence plan.
MAPS describes a six-step process that runs from a gap analysis and objective setting, through a workshop to align the cross-functional team, to finalizing and rolling out the platform. Development usually begins well before launch, so that the first publications and congress presentations already reflect it.
The platform is a living document. New endpoints, a competitor's data, a guideline change, or a safety finding can make a statement out of date or create the need for a new one. Many teams review it on a schedule and whenever a major data readout occurs.
Field insight is often the first sign that a statement needs work. If experts keep questioning the same claim, or the same evidence gap comes up across regions, the platform may be saying something the community does not accept yet. TikaInsights groups field insights into themes, so a team can see when what experts are saying no longer matches what the platform says. More on the insight itself is in the glossary entry on medical insights.
A scientific platform, or scientific communication platform, is an internal document that sets out a company's core scientific statements about a product or disease area, the references behind each statement, and the approved terms to use. Teams build publications, slides, training, and medical information responses from it.
MAPS lists four core components: communication objectives, a hierarchy of scientific statements organized as primary, secondary, and tertiary statements, a scientific summary, and an operational lexicon.
Medical affairs usually owns it and leads its development, with input from publications, clinical development, HEOR, and commercial teams. Publication leads are often involved from the start because the publication plan supplies the references the statements depend on.
Whenever something material changes, such as new trial data, a new competitor, a guideline update, or a safety finding, and on a regular review schedule. MAPS describes the platform as a living asset rather than a one-time document.
If your team wants to see how field insights can show where the platform and the experts disagree, we can walk through it with insights from your own therapeutic area.
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