Selecting the right advisors can make or break an advisory board.
It’s tempting to begin with the most recognizable names in a therapeutic area — the established KOLs who appear on every congress agenda, publication and guideline committee. Those experts can bring enormous value.
But the strongest advisory boards aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest names. They’re the ones with the right mix of perspectives for the questions you need answered.
After years of planning and facilitating advisory boards across clinical development and medical affairs, I’ve found that advisor selection works best when it starts with the objective of the meeting — not with a list of names.
Start with the questions, not the KOL list
Before deciding who should be in the room, define what you need to learn.
Are you trying to pressure-test a clinical development strategy? Understand how investigators may respond to a proposed study design? Explore unmet needs in the treatment landscape? Get feedback on endpoints, patient populations or operational challenges? Understand how emerging data could affect clinical practice?
The answer should shape the composition of the group.
A Phase 2 clinical development advisory board may require a very different group of experts than a meeting focused on medical strategy for an established product.
That sounds obvious, but it’s easy to default to the same familiar names — particularly when teams already have strong KOL relationships.
The KOL network isn’t the whole market
I recently saw a LinkedIn post from biotech executive Christine Ong that made an important point: “The KOL network is part of the market. It’s not the market.”
That distinction is particularly relevant when selecting advisors.
Established KOLs often have deep scientific expertise, extensive clinical-trial experience and valuable perspective on where a field is heading. But relying exclusively on the most visible experts can create blind spots.
Depending on the objective, there may be significant value in including physicians who spend more of their time in clinical practice, investigators from different types of study sites, emerging experts, or clinicians practicing outside major academic centers.
The goal isn’t to diminish the role of traditional KOLs. It’s to make sure the group reflects the perspectives needed to answer the questions at hand.
A productive advisory board benefits from diversity, but that goes well beyond geography, gender or demographics.
Think about diversity of clinical experience and perspective.
That might mean balancing:
- Academic and community-based physicians
- Highly experienced investigators and newer investigators
- Large research centers and smaller clinical sites
- Different geographic regions
- Experts with different approaches to treatment
- Established KOLs and emerging voices
For a clinical development team, site experience can be particularly important. An investigator who has enrolled patients in multiple trials may identify protocol or operational challenges that aren’t obvious on paper.
Those observations can be extraordinarily valuable before a study is underway.
Don’t overlook the dynamics of the room
Expertise alone doesn’t guarantee a productive advisory board.
Some of the most valuable advisors I’ve worked with aren’t necessarily the people who speak the most. They listen carefully, challenge assumptions thoughtfully and build on what others are saying.
Conversely, one dominant voice can unintentionally shape an entire discussion.
When possible, think about how advisors will interact as a group. Is there enough familiarity to encourage discussion without creating groupthink? Are there people who will respectfully challenge prevailing assumptions? Will less-established participants feel comfortable contributing?
The objective isn’t consensus.
Often, the disagreement is where the most useful insight lives.
Consider who is missing
One of the simplest questions a team can ask before finalizing an advisory board is:
Whose perspective are we not hearing?
Maybe it’s the community physician treating a very different patient population.
Maybe it’s an investigator who has struggled to enroll patients into similar studies.
Maybe it’s someone who doesn’t yet have a long-standing relationship with the company.
Or perhaps it’s an expert whose view of the emerging treatment landscape differs from the prevailing consensus.
That doesn’t mean every advisory board needs to represent every possible perspective. A focused meeting should remain focused.
But intentionally asking who is missing can reveal gaps that a traditional KOL list may not.
The right advisors depend on the objective
There is no universal “ideal” advisory board.
The right group for one meeting may be completely wrong for another.
What matters is being deliberate about why each person is being invited and what perspective they can contribute to the discussion.
The strongest advisory boards I’ve been part of weren’t simply collections of impressive CVs.
They were carefully constructed conversations — with the right people in the room to challenge assumptions, surface different perspectives and help a team make better-informed decisions.