Pathfinder Career Narratives is an ongoing series tracking the career choices and experiences of doctoral graduates. You can see all posts in the series here. You can find all of the Pathfinder resources and opportunities here. This post is by Dr Emily McNaughton, Medical Science Liaison, find her on LinkedIn here.
Name: Emily McNaughton
Doctorate subject area, and year of completion: PhD in Immunology, 2017
Role: Medical Science Liaison – Biogen
Approximate salary bracket of this type of role: £70 – £90,000.
The decision to leave academia for an industry role was easy for me. The idea of unstable postdoctoral contracts and the constant grappling around for grant money was enough to give me the push out of the door. Before my PhD started, I was lucky enough to work in an industry lab where I worked alongside PhD students working on collaborative projects with industry. One of these students was coming to the end of her research and looking for career ideas. She enlightened me to my first concept of the Medical Science Liaison (MSL) role. “It’s highly competitive” she said, “but you get to talk about the importance of science and data out in the ‘real world’”.
This stuck with me throughout my own PhD. I knew I wouldn’t stay in academia, but I remembered how competitive she said that MSL job was. I opted for a fast get-out of academia at that moment. The memories of laborious lab work and poor funding opportunities were still very fresh, and I took the first job I could find; Pricing and Market Access Associate for a Life Sciences consulting firm in London. This type of consulting firm works with pharmaceutical company clients to help them bring their drugs to market in the best possible position, given the fact that the markets are highly competitive and sometimes work differently across European countries. The consulting company conducts market research and engages with payers and key opinion leaders to put together a strategy package for their clients. They also support the process by writing important regulatory documents called Health Technology Appraisals, which are submitted to regulatory bodies for new drug or medical device launches. This was a very interesting job, but I chose to leave after a year as the consulting lifestyle of a fast pace and long hours just wasn’t for me.
I then did something I didn’t think I would do. I gave up my permanent contract and moved back to academia, this time as a Project Manager of a substantial grant for a research group at Imperial College London. This was a bit of a strategic move to gain project management experience, which is highly valued by all employers. The role was very enjoyable; managing the budgets, communicating the work of the group at conferences, linking the group to other important stakeholders within the field, and keeping the projects on track to report back to the funders. These roles unfortunately aren’t that common, but some of the big universities with large grants tend to include a budget line for a Project Manager and are starting to see the benefits of having such a role.
When I began this role, it was initially only a maternity cover (don’t be put off by doing these!) but I was lucky enough to stay for almost two years in the end. Towards the end of my time in this role, a recruiter got in touch to say that he had a MSL position for a big pharmaceutical company and he thought that I’d be a good fit. To be honest, I thought he was wasting my time as I knew how competitive these roles are. However, I decided to interview, and was lucky enough to get the job! The feedback from the hiring manager was that I had the therapy area expertise (Immunology from my PhD), the pricing and market access knowledge from my first post-academia role (business acumen), and the networking capabilities (working as a project manager) to be successful in the role.
So, what does a Medical Science Liaison do?
MSLs are a vital resource to a pharmaceutical company. They work within the Medical Affairs team and their main purpose is to build relationships with and communicate scientific data to healthcare professionals or key opinion leaders. Whilst in these discussions, they gain valuable insights into how clinical practice runs, what challenges and gaps there may be, and they can feed this information back to the company to inform on strategy. They also work very closely with several functions within the pharmaceutical company, including the commercial and marketing team, the regulatory affairs team, and research and development. They are one of very few roles to have such a breadth of contact to other functions which is what makes them so valuable. A typical week of an MSL may involve speaking to up to 5 healthcare professionals, going to a journal club, attending a team meeting, conducting training for the sales team, working on materials/slide decks for use, territory planning, etc.
One of the things I love about the role is that no day is the same and you have a lot of autonomy over your schedule. The discussions with the healthcare community vary hugely; you may be talking about the most recent posters from a scientific conference at one, the next you may be giving medical education to a group of nurses, and the next you may be talking about the data your company holds to answer a question that a doctor has about a patient of theirs. It is a highly rewarding position! If you enjoy communicating data, liaising between stakeholders and joining the dots, building relationships (with the healthcare professionals and with your colleagues, especially your sales team), then this may be the role for you.
To find similar roles, I would recommend checking out the MSLA website. They hold networking events and webinars for aspiring MSLs. The role varies slightly between companies, depending on where the products are in their lifecycle (i.e. pre-launch or on the market for several years), how you are measured (Key Performance Indicators – KPIs), and how large your territory will be. Since the Covid-19 pandemic there has been a huge shift towards virtual working, whereas previously you may have been on the road up to four days per week. This has made the role much more manageable and sustainable.
Overall, my thoughts on my PhD experience are that it was essential to get me where I am today. The qualification is necessary in every job description for an MSL position. The ability to problem solve, network, and learn quickly all came from skills I learned from my time in academia. The skills within academia are incredibly transferable; you just need to leverage them by matching them to buzzwords on any job description you see to let any prospective employer know that you are the candidate they’ve been looking for. A career professional is a key source of support for this, so look up who’s there to help you and make an appointment.
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