Digital Science has entered a partnership with Tokyo-based Sunmedia to produce tailored impact reports that help pharmaceutical medical affairs teams in Japan measure how their research and educational activities are received and influence real-world outcomes.
Data meets narrative for medical affairs
Under the agreement, Sunmedia will draw on data from Digital Science’s Dimensions research-information platform and the Altmetric attention-tracking service to build customised, narrative-led reports. The reports are intended to show not only how much attention a body of research receives, but also the nature of that attention — including signals relevant to clinical guidelines and other practical applications.
Sunmedia, which lists pharmaceutical companies as its primary market, serves about 2,000 corporate customers across a range of sectors and counts most of Japan’s major pharmaceutical firms among its clients. The collaboration is presented as a way to give medical affairs teams clearer, evidence-based explanations of their work’s value to internal leadership and external stakeholders.
“Medical affairs teams in Japan have long needed a clearer way to demonstrate the value of their work to leadership. Combining Dimensions and Altmetric data with a narrative-driven approach gives us a way to help them tell that story with real evidence behind it, in a market where this kind of reporting hasn’t really existed before.”
The quotation is from Koji Yamashita, chief executive officer of Sunmedia, signalling a demand among Japanese medical affairs professionals for metrics that translate into management-readable impact.
Why this matters
Medical affairs teams sit at the intersection of clinical science, education and commercial strategy. They publish research, support independent medical education (IME) and interact with clinicians and policy-makers. Demonstrating how those activities change practice or contribute to guideline development is increasingly important for justifying budgets and shaping publication strategies.
Digital Science framed the partnership as a way to make complex bibliometric and altmetric data accessible and actionable. Gareth Williams, director of partnerships at Digital Science, said the collaboration will provide “clear insights” into how research output is received and how medical affairs programmes can be measured internally and externally.
- Platforms involved: Dimensions (research metadata and citation analytics) and Altmetric (attention tracking across news, policy, social media and other outlets).
- Delivery: Sunmedia will produce customised narrative reports tailored to Japanese pharmaceutical customers.
- Objective: Help medical affairs demonstrate influence on clinical guidelines and real-world outcomes.
Context and limitations
Bibliometrics and altmetrics have become routine tools for research evaluation, but they carry well-known limitations. Citation counts and attention measures can indicate visibility and engagement but do not on their own prove clinical impact. Contextualised narratives that link metrics to policy documents, guideline citations or practice-change evidence are therefore required to make a persuasive case to decision-makers.
The partnership emphasises that interplay: metrics feed the narrative, and the narrative situates those signals in the local Japanese market. Sunmedia’s market knowledge is cited as a core asset in interpreting what counts as meaningful attention in that context.
| Organisation | Role in partnership |
|---|---|
| Digital Science | Provides Dimensions and Altmetric data sources |
| Sunmedia | Develops customised, narrative-driven reports for customers |
For Canadian readers, the move is a reminder that pharmaceutical companies worldwide are placing greater emphasis on demonstrable impact from medical-affairs activities. Canadian medical-affairs teams and research offices may see similar demand for narrative-driven, metric-informed reporting as funders and institutional leaders press for evidence that research and education change practice.
How such services are interpreted by regulators, health technology assessors and clinical guideline panels will determine whether they become mere internal communication tools or substantive components of evidence ecosystems. The partnership itself does not claim to measure definitive clinical outcomes; rather, it promises clearer documentation of attention, sentiment and potential links to policy documents.
As Digital Science’s platforms gain adoption, the challenge will be ensuring reports avoid overinterpretation of attention as impact, and that narratives are anchored to verifiable changes in guidance, prescribing or patient care wherever possible.
