Local Writer Initiative Network's outsourced medical writers team grows

Cincinnati-based Writer Initiative Network, a highly skilled team of medical writers, is growing with more than 300 writers in the WIN network since its 2009 founding.

WIN is part of Keith Kleeman's Medical Communication Consultants company founded in 2004. Based in Mt. Lookout, the company provides a wide variety of contract writing services for medical device and pharmaceutical clients. MCC relies on a network of highly educated, experienced writers with medical backgrounds who write clinical reports, patient narratives, risk benefit analysis and more.

WIN writers are currently working with five to 15 companies at a time; most clients are referrals. Writers work remotely from across the country and are all contract employees. Kleeman's low-overhead, expertise-based model allows him to match writers with skills specific to client needs quickly and efficiently, he says.

He maintains the writers' abilities to work on everything from pre-clinical to marketing trials can shave months off the drug development process and save a company up to $100 million in development costs.

The company vets its writers in a 3-stage, rigorous process. The first stage details every aspect of medical writing experience in the last 5 years. If that experience is sufficient, the writers then take an online writing exam. If they pass, they move on to a battery of personal interviews. Only if they pass all phases of the vetting process are they fully approved and available for projects.

“We have over 300 writers in the WIN Network, with over 100 of those fully vetted, and the rest at some stage of approval,” Kleeman says.

WIN is growing as the drug and medical device development process is changing; companies are outsourcing more processes to experts in this labor-intensive industry. But that trend is just part of WIN's growth, Kleeman says.

“We differentiate ourselves greatly from other vendors or suppliers by our unique company structure, which leads to the best writers for a very competitive, if not better, price. So, while outsourcing in the pharma world has grown, our growth has been larger than that of our competitors,” he says.

By Feoshia Henderson
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