Discover the Wonderful World of Nonclinical Pharma Careers

Presentation by Dr. John Jurica – 460

In today's lecture, John offers the webinar that he presented a few years ago on the topic of nonclinical pharma careers.

How Pharma Companies Are Structured

Of the seven major divisions in a typical pharma company, only two consistently hire physicians: clinical development and medical affairs, with safety and pharmacovigilance sometimes broken out separately. Clinical development encompasses roles such as clinical researcher, medical monitor, and clinical research associate.

Medical affairs is the larger of the two, encompassing medical directors at every level — from associate to executive, along with the medical science liaison, one of the most common entry points for physicians without residency training.

Contract research organizations, or CROs, are often the faster path in. Pharma companies experience cyclical hiring needs tied to drug development timelines that can run eight to ten years, and rather than hiring and laying off staff repeatedly, they contract through CROs like IQVIA, Parexel, and ICON to maintain a flexible workforce. For physicians without an obvious segue into pharma, CROs are frequently easier to break into than a pharma company directly.

How Physicians Without Research Backgrounds Actually Got In

Several real cases from Nonclinical Career Podcast guests illustrate how this plays out. A medical school graduate from India who skipped residency entirely worked first as a clinic assistant while studying pharmacovigilance terminology, eventually landing a role as a safety scientist before moving up to associate medical director. A Philippines-trained graduate who never pursued residency took public health coursework, joined the MSL Society, and became a medical science liaison before advancing to senior manager.

Several others transitioned later in their careers: an OB hospitalist who started freelance medical writing part-time while still in practice was recruited by a CRO into a full-time principal medical writer role. A family physician who became a health coach used the marketing and LinkedIn skills she developed running her own business to attract a recruiter and become a primary investigator.

A pediatrician took a part-time contractor role with a pharma company, and within a few months moved into a full-time position in vaccine safety. Across nearly every example, the common thread was an optimized LinkedIn profile, a resume highlighting transferable skills, and a willingness to start at a slightly lower level than clinical experience alone might justify.

Summary

Pharma careers span from entry-level medical science liaison roles to executive medical director positions, and the barrier to entry is lower than most physicians assume. The first job is the hardest to land. After that, moving up, switching divisions, or changing companies becomes considerably easier.

For physicians early in their careers, paid pharmaceutical fellowships are worth investigating as a faster path in. Key resources include the MSL Society and MSL Institute for medical science liaison roles, the American Medical Writers Association for technical writing, the Medical Affairs Professional Society for medical affairs roles, and the Association of Clinical Research Professionals for principal investigator positions.

NOTE: Look below for a transcript of today's episode.

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Links for Today's Episode:

• MSL Society
• MSL Institute
• American Medical Writers Association
• Medical Affairs Professional Society
• Association of Clinical Research Professionals
• What Is the Best Way to Leverage Telemedicine? – 181

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Today's PNC Podcast Transcript

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Discover the Wonderful World of Nonclinical Pharma Careers

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[00:00:00] you're listening to Physician Non-Clinical Careers with John Jurica, episode ~number~ 460, "Discover the Wonderful World of Non-Clinical Pharma Careers." Welcome back, Non-Clinical Nation. Today I'm presenting another one of my lectures from a few years ago on the topic of non-clinical pharma careers for physicians.

This is one of the major corporate employers that is consistently hiring physicians, the others being health systems and health insurers. Many physicians don't realize, unless they are looking for a job as a lead author and designer of a clinical research study, you're eligible for many of the currently available positions in pharma without any research experience or special degrees.

Today, I will provide you with an overview of the available jobs and steps you can take to present yourself as an attractive candidate. But first, I have an important message. I wanna let you know that I'm in the process of [00:01:00] reimagining this podcast. I don't have all the details worked out yet, but you will notice soon that I am changing how I'm sharing the podcast with a much greater emphasis on video.

What I wanna do is elevate the content to that of a weekly series of master classes like this one for those interested in accelerating their career advancement. But I still plan to do weekly audio content for those that pre- prefer it, and I'm going to do lectures as well as interviews. So stay tuned over the coming weeks.

I'm really excited about it, and I think you will be too. Now, let's get right into today's presentation for an understanding of what the pharma companies are looking for and how to make little improvements in your resume to meet those needs I'm gonna try and fit in what I've learned over the last five years about pharma in less than an hour. It's a lot to do, but I want to provide as much usable, actionable information and [00:02:00] value as I can. That's my whole point of trying to do one of these in an hour

And With that said, I have a history as a former CME surveyor. So I did, I don't know, a couple hundred surveys for CME, ~uh,~ companies, and that includes hospitals and medical schools and so forth. And so we always use objectives. And so let me just go through these because this is why I'm saying it's pretty aggressive.

So my goal today is that when we're done, you will be able to describe why you're qualified for a pharma job, whether you're licensed or not licensed, whether you have any experience or not, so forth. The next thing I want you to understand and be able to verbalize is to list the reasons why you'll earn more in pharma job than you would in most clinical jobs eventually.

That's not on day one necessarily, but in actual fact, you'll probably earn more in salary, ~uh,~ doing something in [00:03:00] pharma than you will in your clinical job. And then, ~um,~ the third is that you will be able to implement strategies for landing your first non-clinical pharmaceutical industry job. Now, there's obviously a lot of steps to accomplish that, and, ~uh,~ I'll basically give you some tactics and strategies to do that.

And, ~um,~ ultimately, it will require you to do a lot of research and thought and investigating, but I can get you started, ~uh,~ on that process Okay, so I'm gonna go back to the screen now So as that screen showed, it's my first thing here that I wanna talk about is why pharma? Now, when I talk about non-clinical jobs, ~um,~ there's at least nine major industries, okay?

So you've got consulting, you've got hospital and health systems, you've got pharma, you've got medical writing, ~uh,~ there's a bunch of governmental jobs, there's educational jobs. There we go. Make sure I admit everybody. ~Um,~ but why pharma? ~Um, and~

Basically, [00:04:00] pharma's a huge industry. It makes up and consumes about 10% of the healthcare dollars in the United States, at least last I checked. It might be more now, honestly, because I have not seen so much, ~uh,~ drug advertising in my life since the pandemic. So, ~you know, ~maybe it's more than 10 or 11 or 12%.

It's huge. And there's a lot of job types in pharma. So depending on your interests, you're probably gonna be able to find a job in pharma unless you s- want something where you're, like, 100% remote working from home, okay? So that ~UM ~for insurance companies, you can do that. Probably not gonna find a pharma job where you can do that, although there are some jobs where you can do some remote work.

~Um-~ The other thing is that this is an entry-level job for us. When we're physicians and we're looking to go into pharma, for most of us, we haven't done anything in pharma in the past, So ~we, ~we are starting from the bottom, but it- obviously it's at the peak of our career wherever we are. [00:05:00] So we're taking everything we've learned and we're going to apply it to that new job, but in stepping into that new job You're just beginning, and so there's a lot of steps you can still go through if you decide to, ~you know, ~look for advancement.

~Um,~ and for physicians, there, there are jobs in pharma for those that have 10, 12 years of experience, have multiple, ~uh,~ specialties, ~you know, ~MBA and all that ~kind of ~thing, to physicians who really, they, well, they don't have a license and they haven't done a residency, and there are plenty of jobs for those, and everything in between.

~Um,~ the other thing is that your status will grow over time, meaning that you will move up. It's natural because you're working on a multidisciplinary team, and there are some things only physicians can do in pharma. And on top of that, people look to physicians as leaders and managers, and so there's always [00:06:00] a progress and more status, more responsibility if that's what you want.

And then the other thing is there's work-life balance. You, there's no such thing really as a 60 or 70 hour a week job in pharma. I mean, there might be times when you have to do something like that depending on the level that you're at and what your role is, but, ~uh,~ typically you're gonna work 40, 45 hours a week in almost any of these jobs.

Now, I would like to contrast that with clinical work and make it real clear because this is, this gets to one of the, ~um,~ objectives that I listed at the beginning of this. ~Um,~ physicians make up about 10% ~of the, ~of the cost of medicine, so I think that may have changed recently. That was the old statistic.

But it's about 10%. So in a way, ~the,~ the cost ~of, ~of physicians providing direct patient care makes up about as much of the budget for the entire country for all healthcare as the pharmaceutical industry, which may be a little bit more right [00:07:00] now. Okay. So then it's ~kind of ~comparable. ~Um, and~ but the other thing is once you're in that role, so you've gone through medical school, ~uh,~ residency, fellowship maybe, you're in practice, whatever, your job is completely tied to that specialty.

So if you're a plastic surgeon, you're a plastic surgeon. You can't all of a sudden decide to move to another division and become a, ~you know, ~without going back to school, ~uh,~ do work as a, ~you know, ~nephrologist and vice versa. And you can imagine that. So you're ~kind of ~locked in, again because you're at the top of your career at that point.

That's what you've spent all your time to get to. Now, you could do some academics. You might take a leadership role maybe part-time, but you're pretty much tied to your specialty. And so- Once you're there, there isn't really much room for diversification and there's not much room for movement up. I mean, unless you become, let's say, the practices manager for a large group practice or you take some leadership position in a hospital where you might get paid to be, let's say, president of the medical staff.

That's it. You're at your peak. You're gonna just start churning patients, take care of [00:08:00] patients in the hospital or in the clinic or both. And to get there, nowadays you have to have a license, you have to be residency trained, sometimes fellowship, you have to be board certified pretty much. You won't be getting on any insurance company panels.

And so you really have nowhere to go. And the way that you earn your money, for the most part, is just by seeing patients and doing procedures. It's completely volume driven. So if you wanna say, "Hey, I wanna increase my income by 50%," what does that mean? You gotta see 50% more patients, do 50% more procedures, or a combination of the two.

So basically what you're saying is you have to increase your hours, unless you can get a little more efficient, but mostly efficiencies are what they are. The EMRs don't seem to be getting any easier. And so you're locked in. You're basically locked in for the next 15, 20, 25 years to whatever you're doing.

And if you wanna try and make a little more money and get some bills paid off ahead of time or some loans, then that just means you gotta not have time with your family, not see your kids, [00:09:00] and get burnt out. And so that's the big difference between almost every non-clinical job and being a practicing physician

Now, when we talk about pharma, so pharma's a good choice. Let's talk about pharma. You have to have an understanding of pharma. We don't really get a good understanding, ~uh, ~in training. Yes, we hear about, ~you know, ~phase one, two, three studies, phase four, and post, ~you know, ~release, ~uh,~ monitoring and patient safety and maybe drug safety, medication safety.

But do we really know how a pharma company works? Do we know how it's set up? So I wanna spend maybe five or 10 minutes at most just so you understand, because then you'll understand where your options are for a job in pharma. And if you haven't really explored this before, then this is gonna be important.

You need to figure out where to go, what direction to take, because you can't really learn about everything in pharma in a short period of time. So it helps if you understand it, and you can narrow it down. There are [00:10:00] usually about eight major I'll say seven major divisions in almost any large pharma company.

So I'll start with the ones that you're not going to work in. Finance is huge. Sales and marketing, huge. Manufacturing, okay, so far no physicians involved. Human resources, no physicians. Legal and regulatory, well, if you're a, ~uh,~ MD/JD that might be an option. ~Um,~ you can do that, but probably not. So really it boils down to two major divisions, and sometimes safety is broken out, but basically you've got research and development and medical affairs.

And either there's a safety division which is separate, or there's a safety division in medical affairs and a safety division in R&D, or ~they, ~they matrix them both. So, ~um,~ so that's ~kind of ~the overall, and we're talking huge [00:11:00] millions and billions of dollars that are spent and generated by pharmaceutical companies, the big ones like Merck and, ~uh, you know, ~all the, ~uh,~ the big ones ~you know ~and see every day with the meds that they're producing.

~Um, what am I thinking of? Anyway,~ so there are obviously multiple. And, but to take it to the next step, the main departments within those major divisions are three that you might be... Four, if you include one. One is regulatory. We don't do much in regulatory. ~Um, you know, ~unless that's where they maybe will employ , technical medical writers that help translate, ~you know, ~the medical legal stuff into the, ~uh,~ package inserts and things like that.

But the big one is clinical development, okay? Clinical development is ~kind of ~a piece of R&D, 'cause research and development can include preclinical research and development and bench work and things like that, animal studies. But once you get into human trials, now you're into clinical development. So there are people in there, and I'll talk about them in a minute.

And then you've got medical [00:12:00] affairs, ~uh,~ which is another big, massive, ~uh,~ area with different kinds of jobs. ~Uh, and, and~ I'll talk about the re- the purpose of that. And then safety and pharmacovigilance, which is another area where, ~um,~ there are a lot of, ~uh,~ jobs for physicians

Now there's one big thing, one big player in pharma that I haven't talked about, and I'm gonna go back to sharing my, ~uh,~ slides at this point. All right, so what about a CRO? So what is a CRO? It, well, it used to be it was a contract research organization. ~Um,~ now when you start looking at contract res- research organizations or CROs, that way you'll come up often with a clinical resource organization.

At this point, I think they basically are very similar, if not the same. When I see something that's a CRO, it's usually smaller and focused on just two, three, or four, ~um,~ major activities of a pharm- pharma [00:13:00] company. When I get into clinic- clinical research organizations, they seem to be bigger. But the reason I bring up a CRO is because they hire a lot of these jobs which, ~um,~ support the pharma companies.

~Think about it this way. Um~

F- ~uh, ~pharma companies are like hot and cold. So in other words, they spend years and years, w- I don't know how many years. It takes at least some eight to 10 years to bring a new drug to market. So they spend all this time getting ready to release it, and then it's time to release it. And leading up to that for, for about a year, and then after it for about a year, there's a lot of activity that wasn't going on.

And so rather than hire a bunch of new people, have worked them for nine months, a year, two years, and then firing all of them, they hire people from CROs. And because CROs serve multiple clients, multiple pharma companies, they can balance things out and try and maintain a steady crew of people that have long-term re- longevity with the CRO, [00:14:00] but not with the, ~uh,~ pharma company.

Now, when they hire you, you work for the CRO, but there are relationships with the pharma companies where you're simply a contract person. You may be someone who can be contracted and then hired. ~Um,~ or you may, they may actually do the hiring for the pharma company, and you're actually employed by them.

~So it can work in different ways~

So let me make sure... Here we go. So this is just an example of some of the companies, and some of you may recognize some of these names. So I don't know if I'm pronouncing it, I think it's Iquivia, I'm not sure if or if it's just I-Q-V-I-A. I've heard people talk about it, but it's been quite a while. Parexel, PRA Health, Icon.

Some of you may have heard of these. PPD. These are common, ~um,~ CROs. And, ~um,~ I'm gonna reference an article that I think you might find useful if you wanna dig into this a little bit more. And these are, ~uh,~ just a sample of some of the services. Now, you'll notice everything from clinical design to [00:15:00] actually running ~the, ~the, ~uh,~ the studies, ~uh,~ decentralized clinical trials across the country, medical writing, and then they help with clinical monitoring, they help with safety, they help with biostatistics, help with managing and handling patients.

So they'll do almost anything that a pharma company needs to do on a contract basis. So the advantage to this for you is that it's easier to find employment with a CRO than directly with a pharma company. Now, if you're someone who has a master's degree in medical research and you've done studies as an undergrad or as a...

~uh,~ while you were in med school, or you've got ~a, ~a master's degree, ~you know, ~in some related ti- ~uh,~ area, you could probably, ~you know, ~start with just applying ~at, ~at pharmaceutical companies, and maybe you already have contacts with them, which would be great, and there's no harm in doing that. But at the same time, if you're someone who doesn't have any of those things, doesn't really have an obvious segue [00:16:00] into pharma, but you're still interested in pharmacology, you still love managing drugs, y- and you have other interests, you like the lifestyle, ~um,~ you've read some of the information about the FDA and about clinical trials, you love looking through studies, then a way to short-circuit or, ~uh,~ shorten the process is to look at CROs as an option.

And you should look at both, really, and particularly if you're in a location where you don't wanna travel or you don't wanna move to another city or something for a job, then you should look at both. See which pharma companies are nearby, which CROs are nearby. And I know I've got AbbVie and, ~uh,~ let's see, what's the other one?

I don't think we have any big Pfizer locations , ~um,~ but we probably have many CROs ~and, ~and, ~uh,~ one or two drug companies. Oh, in, in my small town here outside of Chicago, ~uh,~ we have a big pharmaceutical company, but they mostly were... we are, ~uh,~ handling, ~uh,~ serum, human serum. So they don't actually make other drugs.

They use, ~you know, ~[00:17:00] they purify the serum for certain components. So anyway, these are the things. So if you've been... if any of those look interesting to you, then it's something to really think about, ~uh,~ particularly when you consider the other things I talked about at the beginning of this presentation So let's go through each of these divisions, or these are actually departments, ~and,~ and just quickly ~kind of ~give you an idea of what they do.

So clinical development, pretty straightforward. These are the ~kind of ~jobs you'll see when you're looking on LinkedIn or in, ~uh,~ Indeed and other places. Actually, the three places you should look for jobs when you really start looking... And actually, ~if you're, ~if you're interested, you should start looking at job descriptions now, not because you're ready to apply, but you need to know what are the requirements, ~you know, ~what's mandatory, what's nice to have, ~uh,~ what's the language, what, what statements, what lingo comes up over and over that maybe you've not heard before.

Because then it'll point you in the direction of things you need to learn. But these are terms used in the clinical development [00:18:00] part of pharma. Principal investigator, clinical researcher, medical director, medical monitor, clinical research associate. There's others. ~Um,~ but you, if you see those kinds of terms, then you're probably talking about a clinical development job.

Medical director is pretty generic, and you're gonna find that in all divisions where there are physicians involved. ~Um,~ medical affairs, huge part of the company. Like I say, that's the company that has to take this new drug and, even before it has been finally approved by the FDA, get ready to get it out into the world, I guess is how I'd put it, and that includes everything from education and logistics and getting it delivered and, ~uh,~ advertising and marketing and all those things.

There are people in that department that do those things. So you might see a CMO, you might see a senior ~medical director, ~medical director, associate medical director. They might even have lar- more than that depending on... Like Pfizer will have [00:19:00] executive medical director, senior ~medical director, ~medical director, associate medical director.

And, ~uh,~ the other big one, which is very attractive to people, ~uh,~ who are getting started in pharma, is a medical science liaison. So I'll probably touch on these again when I'm talking about some scenarios, some vignettes ~of, ~of people that have gone into pharma that I know of that don't have a background in research, and, ~uh,~ I'll give you some tips and strategies for that.

But just so you understand that these are the ~kind of,~ of terms. There's a lot of overlap, obviously. Now, if you get into safety or pharmacovigilance, the same thing. You're gonna have medical advisors there, a little more common, medical director, medical writers, ~uh,~ there, as well as in possibly the regulatory, and then safety scientist.

I bring up safety scientist because in one of the scenarios I'm going to talk about in a minute, if you are looking to become, ~um- ~If you're looking for a job in safety or [00:20:00] pharmacovigilance, ~uh,~ which are s- basically synonyms, s- different companies use different terms, and you do not have a license, you do not have ~a, ~a residency or board certification, so the extent of your patient contact is basically in medical school, then sometimes you can get a job as a safety scientist, which I'm gonna explain in detail later.

Notice medical is not in the, that term

All right, now I want to talk a little bit about compensation ~Kind of ~gets back to what I was talking about under the objectives and when I made the statement about potential income. ~Um,~ I don't have salary surveys for, ~uh,~ all of these different areas. For-- It'd be almost impossible to do a salary survey for something, let's say, like a medical director in medical affairs, because there's different medical directors over different areas.

There's a lot written about medical science liaison, so I put that link there. ~Um, ~and if you look up MSL or medical science [00:21:00] liaison annual salary, it will pop right up.

And they do it every year, and the 2022 is the one I'm referencing here. And, ~uh,~ they probably will publish the 2023, if they continue to do what they've been doing, in early '24

But let me just say a little bit about salaries. So a medical science liaison is probably like a medical monitor or something along those lines, or a, an, ~uh,~ let's say even an assistant medical director. Could be, ~um,~ down in the 180s, that region. ~Uh,~ I think even medical science liaisons can sometimes start at 160.

But you have to understand that medical science liaison can be a physician, can be a PA, can be an NP, can be a PharmD. It's even possible sometimes they'll call someone that's an MSL, ~um, you know, ~that's got a master's or maybe even a bachelor's degree I've seen. So it's a pretty broad topic, but really ~it's, ~it's someone who can educate others about the drugs.

And so, but a physician MSL is not the same obviously as a nurse MSL, [00:22:00] and so the physicians get higher pay, closer to 180. And the salaries go up from year one at about 160, let's say, for ~the, ~the non-physicians and, ~um, you know, ~170 for the physicians up to 220, 230 after 10 years. Now, most physicians in that period of time will have moved up ~the, ~the ladder, but just gives you an idea about jobs.

And, ~you know, ~the other thing I found in talking with lots of physicians who have converted from clinical to non-clinical or non-traditional jobs is that sometimes they have to take a little bit of a hit But when you co- compare apples to apples, ~you know, ~if you're working 65 hours a week and getting paid, I don't know, 230,000 in a family practice clinic or something, and you become an MSL at 190,000 but you're working 45 hours a week, you can ~kind of ~do the math.

And then the other thing you can realize there is that, ~you know, ~so the lifestyle's better because you have better li- work-life balance, as I said at the beginning, and you [00:23:00] have absolutely no risk of being sued. ~You know, ~I should add that to the beginning of this presentation on a comparison. You work for pharma and other non-clinical jobs, for the most part you'll never be sued.

It'd be one in a million. When you're a physician, it's more like at least 50 to 80%, depending on which... Maybe 100% in some specialties. So you gotta compare apples to apples. But the other thing is, even if you do take a little dip, like I say, you will very quickly move up in experience. You will be able to do a lateral move if you like once you are experienced for a year or two, because now you'll be able to apply for those jobs where they're looking for the experience and they're paying more.

~Um,~ or you'll move up in terms of promotions. ~You know, ~physicians are usually one of the first ones to get promoted to the next job if they want to, if they want to take on more responsibility. But still, the hours are the same. The responsibility is different. It's maybe more, but it, you drop off the things that you don't need to do any longer, and so you're still talking about a 40 or 50-hour job even as you move up the ranks.

So I guess that's all I want to say [00:24:00] about compensation. I have not talked to anyone. I've talked to, I don't know, for my podcast alone I've talked to a dozen, ~uh,~ people in pharma, and then I've also talked to other coaches who are in pharma like Nerissa Kraier ~and, ~and Marjorie Steigler and others who are fr- are in pharma right now.

I've never had anyone tell me that within a year or two they weren't getting paid better than they were in their clinical job. So, ~uh,~ maybe I haven't seen anyone in the super high paying specialties going into that, but that's what I've heard so far and that's my, ~um,~ that's what I... I'll stick by that. So now let's get into the strategies to land your first job.

I put it this way because that's really the crux of this whole thing. Once you've landed your first job in pharma or pretty much any other non-clinical field, that's where the biggest barrier is. That's the biggest challenge. And so if you can get that first job, then you can, A, settle in, [00:25:00] enjoy your lifestyle, get to know your colleagues, learn what you're doing, look around, see if you like that job, and then decide, "Okay, I got some breathing room now.

I can think about what do I need to do to, ~um,~ advance? What do I need to do to get more of a salary?" ~Um,~ so let's talk about some of those strategies. Now, ~kind of ~break it down. And the way I'm gonna do that is I'm gonna use examples of people I've personally spoken with and the way that they did it. So there was a medical school grad from India, and he came to the States.

He passed his USMLE One and two. Okay, those are the exams you have to take. And then he decided he did not want to apply to a residency. He thought, ~"You know, I, ~I just don't wanna go back and do three years of more work, get paid less than I really might be able to get paid doing something else," and he was really interested in pharmacology and thought strongly about [00:26:00] getting a job in pharma.

Now, in the meantime, he did what a lot of foreign medical grads do, is they ~kind of ~keep busy doing things in the clinical setting. So he called himself a doctor assistant. Basically, ~you know, ~he was in a clinic. ~He was, ~he was assisting the doctor, so basically a medical assistant only, ~you know, ~as a physician of course.

A physician medical assistant is at a much different level from, let's say, a typical medical assistant who may have six months of training as opposed to four years. And so there was time. He was working. He was getting paid, and he was paying his bills. And he started looking around, and he spent a lot of time learning about the language, the vernacular in the safety field in pharma.

~Um,~ he got involved in things. He, ~um,~ he learned a lot about patient care working as a doctor assistant. He w- knew about the EMR. He [00:27:00] understood how quality in the outpatient setting was being assessed. ~Um,~ I think he took some courses. He didn't get an advanced degree of any sort. And then he was able to, because he actually already met the requirements for a pharmacovigilance scientist, because ~that's a, ~that's a master's level or a bachelor's level position.

Doesn't mean he couldn't get paid more because he had the MD, but a lot of the pharma positions are, you're el- are eligible for others than physicians. And so at the, at... Even if you don't have residency, ~um,~ a physician in pharma is usually at some level equivalent to a PharmD or a PhD. It's a simple way to think of it.

And so if they're willing to hire, let's say, a master's degree level for a pharmacovigilance scientist, they're gonna do an MD as well. But it's not gonna get him at the salary that he wanted, so he did that for a couple of years, and then he started looking. He looked internally, and he looked [00:28:00] externally.

And even though he only had two or three years experience, he was able to convince another company to hire him on as associate medical director. And now ~you know ~if there's medical in the term, most of the time except for s- medical science liaison, which includes those other specialties and other fields, but most of the time if it says, if it's associate ~medical director, ~medical director, executive medical director, that means it's a physician.

So ~that's, ~that's what he got. He got basically a job that most of the time would require at least five or six years of clinical experience after medical school. But he did it because he was able to start at that slightly lower position and then move up. And now he's happy. He's, ~he,~ he's really enjoying his job, and he's just looking forward to continue to advance.

There's really nothing to hold him back 'cause at this point, he can make... ~Um,~ he can show the evidence of his skills ~and, ~and his contributions on the job. And, ~um, he's, ~he's really happy. Okay, another medical school graduate who was able to get into pharmacovigilance. So this [00:29:00] was someone who graduated from medical school in the Philippines.

~Uh,~ I believe she actually grew up in the US, but her family is from the Philippines, so she went to med school in the Philippines. And she just decided she wasn't gonna go into a residency. I don't remember. I don't think I know whether it was because of a family illness or her illness or other restrictions, ~uh,~ other constraints, or just decided not to spend another three , ~uh,~ years going into a- another field.

And so she worked as a health equity consultant. She worked as a grad student researcher. She did work with the NIH. She started taking public health classes, and she began applying as a medical science liaison using, ~um,~ some of the methods that I may discuss in more detail towards the end here. ~Um,~ and that was it.

It took her about a good year, but she was able to... She joined the Medical Science Liaison Society fairly early on. They actually have a certification process in the MSL Society, but it's only for those that are already working as MSL. So it doesn't enable you to [00:30:00] go get the certification and then apply as an MSL with your certification.

But she was able to take courses. She was able to go through many, ~uh...~ And she actually got involved in the MSL society quite, quite a bit. And so she landed her first job, and then she moved to another company and, ~um,~ took the job as senior manager of medical science liaisons in that company. So again, no residency, no fellowship, and she's definitely making really good money, more than your typical master's level or even PhD, ~uh,~ generally And that's, I like to remind people, again, your medical degree is an asset.

It's extremely valuable. Don't discount it and don't ignore it. ~You know?~ Don't say, "Well, I'm just gonna move into something different." You can do that if you want to, but if it's not medically related, you're probably leaving a lot of salary or income on the table. Now, if you want to start your own business or be a consultant or something, you can use it for that as well.

But in general, I... People sometimes get frustrated if they've [00:31:00] just got the medical school and they don't have the residency that, ~you know, ~they can't leverage. ~Uh,~ let's see. Then, ~uh,~ there was an obstetrician I talked to who was, ~uh,~ basically a laborist, I guess is what I call them, and she's an OB hospitalist.

And, ~um,~ she... No, she just had it. ~You know, ~she was burnt out and she was tired of the call. ~You know?~ And so she decided she wanted to move out, but she didn't have a great plan, so she thought, what is she gonna do? Well, she ~kind of ~learned about medical writing, and she didn't know about it. ~You know, ~you would think most of us would understand there are medical writings, but, ~uh,~ writers.

But, ~you know, ~unless you're exposed to it directly, you don't think of it, but it is a major career. And it's actually not the biggest part ~of, ~of pharma careers, but I bring it up because it, in this case, it does involve pharma. But, ~you know, ~there are a lot of jobs as medical writers, and there's five or six major types of medical writing.

When you're in pharma, you're gonna be a technical writer. But anyway, she was still practicing. She cut her hours back a little bit. She took a course on how to become a medical writer, a freelance medical writer part-time. That's what the PT means for [00:32:00] freelance medical writer. She was part-time, and she started to grow her, ~um, her, ~her contacts with basically editors and publishers.

I think it was mostly medical education. Some of it could have been, ~uh, you know, ~patient education, that ~kind of ~thing. ~Um,~ but it was... Some of it was CME. And then she really got to a point where she had quite a few consistent recurring jobs as a medical writer while she was still working clinically. And She was approached by a recruiter on LinkedIn, which indicates another of the strategies you have to really keep in mind, optimize your LinkedIn profile.

She had put some description of what she was doing, and I think it was partly because of the fact that she knew how to run a business, she knew how to m- market herself. She was writing about certain things that were related to medications and drugs. And so they approached her and recruited her for a full-time job as a [00:33:00] principal medical writer.

Now, again, here we see she was working for a CRO. ~Um,~ and again, she wasn't really aggressively trying to find a job with a CRO. I'm not even sure she knew what a CRO was when they reached out to her. But she became a technical writer. That's, ~you know, ~the title there is principal medical writer. That's what they call them.

But she's a technical writer, meaning you have to write according to the FDA guidelines, include everything that needs to be included, and they teach you how to do that in pharma if you don't already know. But you can learn ahead of time a little bit about that by starting to dig into it. ~Um~ I will mention some of the things you can do in one of the next slides, so I'm not gonna get into too much detail on this one.

But she's still there. ~Uh,~ she's very happy, full-time, and she doesn't have to look for work. And if she gets too busy, there are other writers there that can take over, and if she gets slow, she can help the other writers. So it's really an ideal situation for her, and she loves it. And she's an OB, and she's happy with the salary.

So again, ~uh,~ these things usually tend to work out pretty well. [00:34:00] Then I recently interviewed someone who went from, for family medicine to a primary investigator, which really intrigued me because when I thought of a primary investigator for some of these studies, I was thinking, okay, in my mind, the primary investigator is someone who comes up with ~the, ~the purpose of a study.

~You know, ~they're interested in some topic, and they say, "Okay, we need to do a study. ~Uh,~ we can use this drug or something that already exists, and I'm gonna design the study." But that's not what a primary investigator is in a CRO or in most pharma companies. ~Uh,~ that would be a clinical researcher, although sometimes they will also be called a PI.

But a PI, the way this physician is using it in this job, is someone who's at a site and manages that site for that study. So, ~uh,~ the drug companies, ~you know, ~when they're trying to get a drug approved, ~um, you know, ~once they get to, like, stages II and III, they need, like, 15,000 patients, I think, something like that.

It's an enormous number. And so they're done at multiple sites, and [00:35:00] they gotta recruit the certain type of patients and randomize them and do that whole thing. So-- And that's done usually, ~um, you know, ~at a local clinical site, whether it's academic or it's a large group that's doing some ~kind of ~outpatient study.

And so they need people to basically take care of everything at that site, make sure all the protocols, ~uh,~ protocols are followed, make sure the safety measurements are there. She-- They may have to look at a patient if there's a question, should this be an inclusion or excluded? They'll look at paperwork, or they'll actually physically look at the patient.

So what she did, she was doing family medicine originally. She got a little frustrated doing just the broad family medicine, and so she then started to add obesity medicine to her, ~um,~ her clinic where she was working. She was with a group, though. She wasn't solo or anything like that. And, ~uh,~ after the pandemic, she was getting really ~kind of ~burnt out and frustrated with that, so she decided to become a health coach.

And one of the things she did as part of that was [00:36:00] she hired ~a, ~a business coach for herself. And so she started to get coaching about how to create this business as a health coach, health advisor, ~um,~ how to set up a website, how to do your finances, how to understand accounting, how to manage things. And one of the things they taught her was how to market both herself and her business.

And she used that to Later on, market herself and her profile LinkedIn to attract recruiters looking for these primary investigators. And she got in touch with a recruiter and, ~um,~ basically that was it. ~Uh,~ it didn't take that much. I think the recruiter actually reached out to her, saw that she had these skills, and a lot of it was just management and leadership skills plus her medical, and so she became a primary investigator.

They trained her how to do that at w- the site where she's working or the company she's working for. It is a [00:37:00] CRO ~Um,~ also, although she ~kind of ~doesn't think of it as a CRO, she ~kind of ~feels like she's working for the company 'cause she relates and she interacts a lot with the pharmaceutical company staff itself.

But she's put there and, ~um,~ she may or may not end up, ~um,~ working directly for the company. She doesn't really care at this point 'cause her pay is good, her lifestyle's great, and she's happy. I think I might have one more. Here's another recent one that I spoke to on one of my podcast episodes, and she was a pediatrician.

And, ~you know, ~pediatricians work pretty darn hard. They do long hours. They see dozens and dozens of patients in a given day. It's very tiring. And, ~um,~ she was... had started a family. She had, I think, one daughter, and she just decided that it was time to lighten up her time, so she was gonna look for something else.

She didn't really intend to go into pharma at the beginning, but she looked around for a part-time job, and she found this job, ~um,~ with a pharma company, but it was as a [00:38:00] contractor. And so she was an independent contractor, ~you know, ~like a 1099 employee that sometimes the pharmaceutical companies will hire, again, to reduce their costs, and if they don't need the person, they can let them go by just canceling their contract or not renewing it.

And she did that part-time while she was still working as a pediatrician for a while, and she kept looking for that next job within that company. ~Um,~ and so when it came up that they needed someone to work in vaccine safety, she applied for that job. She got that job. So now she's really about three months into her role as associate medical director for vaccine safety.

It's a full-time job, nice hours, nice pay. She's as happy as can be, and she had no clinical, she had no real clinical research background, ~uh,~ in the past that I can recall from talking with her. So these give you i- an idea of some of the strategies you can use. I guess the biggest one is, ~you know, ~keep in mind using the CRO and get a real good understanding of a CRO, ~um,~ and of the pharma jobs and the requirements by going through those job, ~um,~ [00:39:00] listings, those job descriptions.

Remember when you're looking at a job description that they're always negotiable. And you might have a job description that says, ~um,~ "I want A, B, C, D, and E," ~you know, ~all very concrete, all very clear. The reality is, if you've ever hired anybody, you can have 10 different requirements. You'll be happy if you get six or seven of them because nobody is gonna meet all those requirements most of the time unless they're ex- very experienced and very expensive to hire.

Oh, there is one more. One of my old s- ~uh,~ friends and, ~uh,~ podcast guests from five years ago, she was in pathology. She really didn't like pathology, so she started to look for clinical things she could do, and she ended up working in a vein clinic to pay the bills, and it wasn't really what she wanted to do.

But she decided that she wanted to become a medical science DA. So now this is someone who has obviously an MD and had some clinical experience, and so really is a little different from the ones I talked about at the beginning of this whole sequence [00:40:00] of vignettes. ~Uh,~ but she's looked for a year. She updated her resume.

She updated her LinkedIn. She sent out a lot of, ~um,~ a lot of email and, ~uh,~ online resumes, and she s- she told me she sent out hundreds, if not, like, a thousand. And ultimately what happened was she was able to link up with an actual recruiter, either through word of mouth, through networking or something like that, where she could go directly to the recruiter, explain her situation, send her resume, and that's how she got the job.

I think she had one or two, ~um, uh~ openings that she was accepted to in different companies, and she took one. Now, she's a medical science liaison. She really loved it for the first couple of years. There's a lot of travel involved, and so then she said, "Well, I wanna do something else." And I just give this example because once you're in the pharma industry, as I said at the beginning, then you can leverage it for another job in the pharma is- industry, whether it's vertical or horizontal, switching.

So she decides she wanted to get into clinical development. She did a couple of things to [00:41:00] help that along. One is when she was working as an MSL, there was a big need for, ~uh, uh,~ I guess I would call it a database of all the companies they were working for. ~You know, ~again, she was working for a CRO as well, and they're working for all these different companies, and they were doing different things.

~And, ~and so she developed a database for that. I think it was a simple spreadsheet. Maybe it was a programmable spreadsheet. It wasn't like an app, but it was a very useful tool, and she got involved, and she started talking to her colleagues. And the other thing she did was there, were there big n- national meetings that they would go to once or twice a year.

She would make a point of, ~uh,~ networking at those meetings, either with her colleagues at other sites, ~you know, ~for her company, or with other people that she met, ~um,~ through, ~uh,~ LinkedIn or through the meetings, and she was be able to do that. And then she... that's how she got her job in, ~um,~ I think in a different company as associate medical director in clinical development, and now she's a medical director in clinical development.

So she's actually working on the, ~uh,~ on the pharma side of planning and developing and [00:42:00] managing, ~um,~ these protocols and these studies, and then the PIs that are out in the field that I mentioned earlier then interface with her, ~uh,~ when there's any questions or issues with safety or other, ~um,~ problems that arise.

So it's two... it's the PI is on site in the way we're talking about it today, and the medical director for clinical development is really at the f- pharmaceutical company or CRO ~and, ~and running and managing the entire, ~uh,~ study across the country or across a region or something like that. All right. So there's one other strategy that I wanna mention that applies mostly to young or younger physicians

I say ~younger ~younger physicians, and that is fellowships. And again, ~I've,~ I've ~kind of ~heard about this, ~you know, ~over the last few years, and then recently it's really come up repeatedly. And, ~um,~ so ~what do, ~what do we, how do we find these? What are they called? And are there very many out there? ~Um,~ because, ~you know, ~the [00:43:00] strategy that my last example showed where, ~you know, ~you switch clinical careers, maybe get a job as an MSL, and then move into a job in medical affairs or in clinical development, ~um~ to get your final job.

I mean, that's gonna take a while, five, 10, 15 years, and so is there a way to short-circuit that whole process if you're younger? I mean, you could do it when you're 40, 45, but it's hard because you have to apply for these. These are so-called fellowships. Sometimes they're called physician development programs, physician leadership programs, physician pharmaceutical fellowships, clinical pharmacology fellowships for physicians.

They're not all exactly the same. I've never been through one. ~Um,~ they can be anywhere from one year to two years. The way they usually describe them is a six-month rotation in two different locations, or four six-month rotations, or two one-year rotations, ~you know, ~doing a certain thing. Now, a clinical pharmacology fellowship is very focused on pharmacology, whereas the physician development programs and, ~uh,~ physician f- ~uh,~ pharmaceutical fellowships are really giving you exposure to [00:44:00] clinical development, to medical affairs, to safety and pharmacovigilance, maybe to regulatory.

I don't think they're gonna get... They're mostly gonna stick to the most more clinical. So, I mean, ~if, ~if someone on this call is younger and thinking about making a major shift and they can afford to ha- These are paid fellowships. ~Uh, they, ~they might actually pay a little more than what I recall some of our residents at my local hospital are being paid, but probably commensurate with that.

So, I don't know, $50,000 plus or minus, maybe a little bit more. Now, these pharma companies, if they're hosting these, they obviously are thinking or they're gonna hire those people at some point, ~you know, ~when it's all said and done. It's not guaranteed, and not every student stays with that 'cause they may, for geographic reasons or family reasons or whatever, decide to go somewhere else.

But these are just a list of some of those that I was able to find. I've never spoken with anyone who's gone through one of these, but, ~uh,~ again, one of my guests said this is [00:45:00] really the way to go if you're young and you have that flexibility and don't have $300,000 of debt that you have to start paying off.

'Cause if you do that, then you're gonna have to postpone the debt, and you're gonna have to accrue all the interest, and that's a big decision. But, ~uh,~ so it's not for everybody, but if you can do this, then you're pretty much guaranteed a job ~in, ~in pharma.

Okay, what about the other strategies? Here are some of the things that come up quite often when I'm talking to physicians that have made this transition. Number one If you're in clinical doing whatever you're doing, try to become an expert in whatever medication you use the most.

I mean, unless it's, ~you know, ~Lasix or something. But if you've got a drug that you're always using as a cardiologist, you're always using as an internist, really maybe you're treating a lot of hypertension, you s- got certain newer antihypertensives you love to use, you become an expert in that drug. You can actually s- go a- around and do the, ~uh,~ the marketing, ~you know, ~s- talks.

That actually means something when pharma looks at you. They'll say, "Wow, this person's already talking to his colleagues [00:46:00] about this drug. Well, ~he's, ~he's a shoo-in for an MSL," because that's exactly what MSLs do, but they do education. They do not market. ~Um,~ so keep that in mind, ~you know. ~A- or if you use ~a, ~a, a certain instrument all the time, ~uh,~ and you prefer it over others, you could do the same thing in a medical device firm.

~Um,~ the certification for the MSL, that's more for advancement. That's not to get your first job. Gotta, you've got to optimize your LinkedIn and your resume, okay? Resume should be two pages, and it should have a list of transferable skills, things you have done outside of that field that now apply to the pharma job that you're thinking about pursuing Professional organizations, I mentioned I would mention that here.

The American Medical Writers Association for medical writers. They've got information there for technical writing. The MSL Society for MSLs. The Medical Affairs Professional Society, okay, for people that are looking at medical affairs, what do they do, how do they talk, what's their, what's ~the, ~[00:47:00] the, the jargon they use.

Association of Clinical Research Professionals. Okay, you wanna actually head up these studies, be a PI or clinical investigator. And then you might read the Pharma Code, which is the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. It's an organization, puts, it writes this code on interactions with healthcare professionals, mainly because it's just things you need to be aware of and how to interact as a, ~uh,~ if you're not in sales, ~um,~ and how to stay completely within the guidelines, and there's a lot of lingo in there that you'll learn if you do that.

~Um,~ and I might... I think ~it's, ~it's... ~Hmm, ~I think it's MSL Institute . com. But if you look it up, ~um,~ it's an institute. It's funny ~when, ~when people, ~uh,~ talk about institute... ~um, you know, ~I think of an institute as like a building, ~you know, ~an institute. But the MSL Institute, ~uh,~ is a PhD MSL who has written enormous number of articles, and he has written several books.

One of her books is called something [00:48:00] like, Every MSL Has to Find Their First MSL Job. So it's all about getting your first MSL job. So there's a ton of stuff on MSL out there, because it's seen as the main, like, entry-level position to pharma. ~Um,~ but again, if you're a practicing physician, you can probably skip that.

The thing about being an MSL is it does require a lot of travel. Usually, you're usually gonna travel at least three days a week, whether that means driving around or, ~um,~ flying even. It can get quite a bit. With the pandemic, there was a little bit more of remote meetings, and usually you work one day at home on, ~uh,~ the, ~you know, ~paperwork and so forth, and you do one day, ~uh,~ of meetings for your company, which you can also do online at home.

But then you're gonna either have to do an online meeting or actually physically drive or fly or, ~uh,~ however you're gonna get to, ~uh,~ your, ~um,~ your what they call key opin- opinion leaders and, ~uh, um,~ local experts that you're gonna share education with. So, so some people find that, ~uh,~ the travel is a little bit onerous, and so they prefer other jobs.

But I guess ~what, ~what I wanna kinda close [00:49:00] with here is that I think the barrier to getting in ~a, ~a pharma job is a lot lower than many of us have thought, because all the guests I've had, other than maybe one PhD and, ~um,~ let's say maybe one who did have definitely was someone like Nerissa, Dr. Nerissa Kreher, who's got like a master's degree in clinical research,

they didn't have any experience, but they had other experiences that, ~um,~ that demonstrated the skills. And, ~you know, ~we're physicians, we can pretty much learn anything we put our mind to. So ~they, ~they know that. They just wanna make sure you're committed and you're not just doing the job or taking the job as because you're just burnt out and you'll do anything.

~You know, ~you need someone who wants to be in pharma and looking forward to that. So what ~kind of ~soft skills are needed for different pharma jobs? Well, if you're gonna be an MSL, you're meeting with people constantly at least two or three days a week. So you need a lot of people skills. If you have a background in sales or understand how to market yourself and, and interacting, you're an extrovert, then MSL is [00:50:00] perfect.

Although I know many introverts who learn how to be good MSLs as, as well. ~You know, ~in medical affairs, ~um, you know, ~you're, if you're a medical director, you're ~kind of ~like, you're kinda like middle management for the most part. I mean, sometimes I'll call someone a medical director that actually does a one-on-one job, like let's say in other industries, like in utilization management, okay?

Let's say you're a medical director. You're really a physician advisor if you compare it to the hospital setting, because you're just looking at records, talking with a physician if you have to, and filling a form out. And so sometimes it can be misleading. But most of the medical directors and let's say senior medical directors ~in, ~in medical affairs They have to have some management, ~you know, ~like managing...

And when I say management, not like physicians manage, like an ER team or a surgical team, which a lot of those skills are great. But to manage people that report directly to you and be responsible for their, ~um, you know, ~their performance, ~uh,~ their performance [00:51:00] reviews, ~uh,~ understanding a little bit about business, ~uh,~ a little bit about budgets.

So as far as, ~you know, ~the soft skills, ~um, ~but as far as the soft skills go, I mean, really introvert, extrovert. ~Um, ~communication's important in almost any role in pharma, unless you're ~you know, ~a desk researcher. So you're gonna ha- ~uh, ~the communication skills, negotiation skills, ~uh,~ persuasion skills, ~um,~

But see, most of these are really already the features of a physician. You have to be well organized, reliable. You have to be meticulous for a lot of these pharma jobs because you've got the FDA looking over your shoulder. Everything has to be done according to the rules and regulations. So those are the main skills, I would say.

And there's another s- that's another thing you can do. You can actually get coaching to, to land a pharma job. ~Uh, ~there are several people that do this. ~Um, uh, ~let's see. ~You know, ~the non-clinical, Physician Non-Clinical Career Hunters Facebook group is led by Laura McCain. Well, Laura McCain spent the last eight or 10 years of [00:52:00] her career in safety and pharmacovigilance, as far as I know.

So she's an expert on pharma, and she's written a bit about it. She's been interviewed by me about it, and sometimes I think she does some coaching. Nerissa Kreher has, she does coaching one-on-one, but she also has, like, I think a combination, like group coaching and course that you can do that will give you more information.

And let's see Can you break into pharma industry in your 50s? Let's see. Of all the people that I have spoken with, ~uh,~ without actually asking them their age, I would say most of the people that have made the switch have been under age 50. Now, I still think you can apply these, ~um,~ principles to landing a job.

I think if you really do everything including, ~um,~ the LinkedIn, the resume, maybe get some coaching just to see what your coach might say about that. But again, Laura McCain and Nerissa Kreher are two. I [00:53:00] think there'd be a challenge if you're over 50, but I think it'd be worth a shot.

And do everything that we talked about.

Well, that's it for today's presentation. Pharma careers run the gamut of entry-level medical science liaisons who may not have even completed residency to executive level positions. The first job is generally the most difficult to land, but once in the industry, it is often relatively easy to either move up in your division, to switch to a different division, or to move up by changing companies.

Salaries and benefits are excellent, and you'll not have the challenges that clinical medicine often entails. You can find the show notes for the audio podcast, links to related content, and a transcript of today's presentation by going to nonclinicalphysicians.com/nonclinical-pharma-careers. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at [00:54:00] john.jurecka.md@gmail.com and join me next week for another episode of Physician Non-Clinical Careers.

I also wanna remind you that I'm in the process of reimagining this podcast with a greater emphasis on video, and basically, I want to elevate the content to that of a weekly series of master classes for those interested in accelerating their career advancement. Stay tuned over the coming weeks. I'm really excited about it, and I think you'll be excited too.

And if you're not already receiving my newsletters so that you'll be informed when there are changes, be sure to sign up so you don't miss anything at nonclinicalphysicians.com/newsletter. Finally, I admonish you to not forget that the opinions expressed here are mine. While the information provided in the podcast is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge, there's no guarantee that using the methods discussed will lead to success in your career, life, or business.

So always consult [00:55:00] an attorney, accountant, or career strategist before making any major decision about your career. All right, that's it. Bye for now

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