The Medical Science Liaison Career Guide

How to Break Into Your First Role

Samuel Jacob Dyer

• Publisher: Medical Science Liaison Inc
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9780989962629
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Crescita personale
• Subtopic: Industria farmaceutica, biotecnologica e sanitaria

Even for highly qualified candidates, becoming a Medical Science Liaison is a challenging endeavor! It's nearly impossible to achieve on your own without the proper preparation and guidance... The Medical Science Liaison Career Guide: How to Break into Your First Role will show you, step by step, how to search for, apply, and interview for your first MSL role. The book reveals strategies for standing apart from the competition, what hiring managers look for when considering candidates, and what gets the right candidates hired. Dr. Samuel Jacob Dyer shares his years of experience as a hiring manager at some of the world's top pharmaceutical companies and as chairman of the board for the MSL Society. In three easy-to-read sections, he discusses the Medical Science Liaison role, presents your MSL job search strategy, and reveals the inner workings of the MSL hiring process. His proven techniques and insights will increase your chances of starting your career as a highly paid Medical Science Liaison.

Part 1

The Medical Science Liaison Role

1

Past, Present, and Future of the MSL

As you begin to prepare for an MSL career, it’s important to understand the history of the role, how it has continually evolved over the years, and the future impact that the role will have on the success of companies.

History and Purpose

The Medical Science Liaison (MSL) role was first established in 1967 by the Upjohn Company. Since then, MSLs have assumed different levels of responsibility, depending on a company’s use of the position and its own individual objectives. Though originally called a Medical Science Liaison, over the years and today, companies have used various titles for the role, including medical liaisons, medical managers, regional scientific managers, clinical liaisons, and scientific affairs managers, among others.

The role was created in response to the need for professionally trained field staff to build rapport with influential physicians, known in the pharmaceutical industry as key opinion leaders (KOLs), in various therapeutic areas of research.

The primary goal of the MSL function has always been to provide a peer-to-peer-level scientific exchange with KOLs and other health care providers. MSLs accomplish this through providing an objective representation of all clinical data and scientific information regarding a particular disease, therapeutic area, or products.

Educational Backgrounds and Focus on Science

Over the years, MSL teams have been made up of individuals with various scientific backgrounds, including “super” sales reps, those with nursing backgrounds, those with various doctoral degrees, and those with other clinical backgrounds. However, in the late 1980s, a number of companies began to require those applying to MSL roles to hold a doctorate degree, such as an M.D., Pharm.D., or Ph.D.

During this same period, several governmental and nongovernmental agencies expressed concern about how employees from pharmaceutical and biotech companies engaged within the health care community. The conflict specifically revolved around the difference between sales and “educational” (i.e., MSL) roles. These concerns had wide-reaching implications for MSLs, including the educational standards required.

In 2003, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) published the Compliance Program Guidance for Pharmaceutical Manufacturers (http://oig.hhs.gov). These are referred to as the OIG guidelines, and they were created to address the concern that traditional commercial activities such as sales and marketing might influence scientific or medical activities. These guidelines created a distinct firewall and separation between traditional commercial activities and medical activities. The reason that many companies separated their MSL programs from their commercial operations was to create an unbiased resource that was not perceived to be driven by sales or marketing. Among other things, this resource was intended to help opinion leaders expand research within their specialty or therapeutic areas.

As a result, the OIG guidelines helped to shape the roles and responsibilities of MSLs. Before these guidelines were released, most MSL teams had been part of the marketing or sales departments. But to adhere to the new rules, many pharmaceutical companies redeployed the MSL role and moved them away from commercially focused departments like sales and marketing. As a result, MSLs became part of separate medical affairs departments.

The Present

This structural change has become the standard across the pharmaceutical industry. Two studies by Cutting Edge Information highlight this change. In 2004, 27 percent of companies surveyed still housed their MSL teams under sales and marketing, but in a 2010 follow-up study that number had fallen to 2 percent.

Doctorate Degrees Are the New Standard

The required educational and scientific background and purpose of MSLs has progressively evolved. Historically, the educational standard in the industry did not require MSLs to have a doctorate degree. Today, however, the doctorate degree has become standard in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. You may still see job descriptions stating that a doctorate degree is “preferred,” but don’t be fooled. The reality is that, with rare exception, all MSL roles require a doctoral degree.

So prevalent is this new standard that many companies have restructured their educational requirements for MSL teams. In addition, after restructuring their educational requirements for MSLs, a number of companies have actually laid off MSLs who did not have a doctorate degree and have hired new MSLs with doctorate degrees to replace them! There are no numbers of historical context as to how many MSLs previously did not have a doctorate degree, but today, according to a recent survey conducted by the MSL...

Table of contents

• TitlePage
• Copyright Page
• Epigraph
• Preface
• Introduction – What is a Medical Science Liaison?
• Part 1 – The Medical Science Liaison Role
• Part 2 – The MSL Job Search Strategy
• Part 3 – The MSL Hiring Process
• Final Thoughts
• What the MSL Community Is Saying About this Book
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Appendices
• Index
• Back Cover