More materials, tighter timelines, and increased FDA scrutiny are putting greater pressure on Medical, Legal, and Regulatory (MLR) review teams. One key takeaway from this year’s 7th Annual Promotional Review Summit was clear: faster, more effective MLR review starts upstream.
Cathryn Marino-Violetti, VP, Associate Operations Director, recently attended the Summit in Philadelphia, joining professionals from across the industry to exchange perspectives, explore evolving approaches to promotional review, and discuss the trends shaping the future of healthcare communications.
Why submission quality matters for MLR efficiency
Across the Summit, a consistent message emerged from reviewers: submission quality matters. Cleaner inputs, stronger templates, earlier alignment, reusable claims, and clearer governance can reduce unnecessary review cycles and allow MLR teams to focus their expertise where it matters most.
For agencies and brand teams, improving the promotional review process means addressing potential friction before materials reach MLR. Standardized templates, well-managed claims libraries, clear annotation practices, and earlier cross-functional alignment can help teams submit materials that are more complete, consistent, and easier to evaluate.
This upstream preparation can reduce avoidable back-and-forth while creating a stronger foundation for collaboration between agencies and MLR teams.
How AI can reduce friction in the MLR review process
AI is also beginning to support the review process in practical ways. Rather than replacing the judgment and expertise of MLR reviewers, technology can help teams identify potential issues earlier and reduce manual work throughout the review lifecycle.
Potential applications include:
Capturing institutional knowledge: Documenting meeting decisions and making previous guidance easier to search and reference.
Supporting pre-review: Conducting preliminary reviews of copy before materials reach MLR to help surface potential issues earlier.
Improving annotation readiness: Helping identify functional annotation needs within creative before submission.
The opportunity is increasingly less about replacing the reviewer and more about enabling reviewers to apply their expertise more effectively.
For agencies, this creates an opportunity to think differently about where technology can support the MLR review lifecycle: before a submission ever reaches MLR, during submission preparation, and through the knowledge and insights carried forward after review.
Moving from faster MLR review to smarter partnership
The goal isn’t simply to make promotional review faster. It’s to build a smarter partnership between agencies and MLR teams.
By bringing together better processes, purposeful technology, and human expertise, teams can improve submission quality, reduce avoidable review cycles, and create a more scalable approach to promotional review.
The takeaway from the 7th Annual Promotional Review Summit is that improving MLR efficiency doesn’t begin at the point of review. It begins with how we prepare for it.
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