This never gets mentioned much...was just curious if anyone is working as a medical writer (either content or regulatory)? How did you land your job, do you enjoy it, and how would someone be able to break into such a field? It seems like very interesting and challenging work from what I've read about.
Any rph out there working as a medical writer?
- Thread starter Lnsean
- Start date
I wrote for Natural Standard until a little after they got bought by Therapeutic Research. I had a rotation with them and asked if they needed any contractors. Since I did well on the rotation, they gave me some extra work here and there. It worked out to be around $30/hr. Good beer money for a student on their APPEs. It wasn't my passion, so I didn't pursue it as a career.
Sent from my iPad using SDN mobile
Sent from my iPad using SDN mobile
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2002
- Messages
- 4,357
- Reaction score
- 4,703
I do this as a side job for industry (Triangle which is now Gilead and Eli Lilly are my normal clients), but in addition, I deal with the statistical matters for IND or NDA matters. Pay is roughly 5-6X standard pharmacist pay for the consultant (at minimum $350/hr), but you have to have quite a bit of liability insurance, provide your own statistical software (which is not cheap), and depending if it has actuarial implications, the correct certification. It could be a full-time job, but the work is really stressful and boring (I'd rather work as a dispensing pharmacist for Walgreens as it is lower stress than those time limits). Recruited out of graduate school and is a sideline to my civil service hat. Work really picks up around this time of year due to the Christmas approval rush.
It's fine work, and besides having editable English, you spend 95% writing technical documentation which is a real drag. If I weren't a pharmacist, I'd probably use amphetamines as it's hard to stay motivated to finish assignments.
CRO work is probably the way to break into that line of business.
It's fine work, and besides having editable English, you spend 95% writing technical documentation which is a real drag. If I weren't a pharmacist, I'd probably use amphetamines as it's hard to stay motivated to finish assignments.
CRO work is probably the way to break into that line of business.
What sort of time commitment does this demand? It sounds like an interesting way to make some extra money, and I love gaining experience in new areas.
By the way, over the past few weeks I've been reading your posts and think you are an excellent role model for a young fool like myself. Teach me your ways, wise one. Nuclear was my first goal, and I took the full classroom requirements plus an internship with Cardinal Health. That fell through since I graduated in a big Mo-99 shortage, but I have managed to claw my way into informatics. It seems like you have insight on all of the areas I'm interested in.
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2009
- Messages
- 1,303
- Reaction score
- 1,013
Why liability insurance?
I've been doing consultant writing for a long time, and have never felt the need to, nor been contractually required to, purchase liability insurance.
I'm also pulling in nowhere near $350/hr (I'm closer to the $100-$120/hr range), nor am I dealing with INDs or NDAs, so your niche is likely different than mine.
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2002
- Messages
- 4,357
- Reaction score
- 4,703
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have a feeling your target audience is for technical literature without a regulatory component (and that pay range is the mid-to-high tier for someone doing that writing which is quite a nice sideline).
For that reason, I think we're talking about two different medical writing niches. Part of it is for medical writing, and part of it is for the regulatory affairs aspect to what I write, it's quite a bit better compensated (that quote is on the low end, and is the public known figure for those two companies, it actually is higher and with a contingent payoff if certain objectives are met with the product), but it has a professional liability (E&O) risk:
Statistical Consulting: A Guide to Effective Communication: Janice Derr
Please pick this up (don't buy it, the book's not that valuable, get it from the Medical Library) and read chapter 8: This book pretty much outlines what I'd say to someone about medical writing or statistical consulting in terms of the business aspects of the problem from bad clients. The E&O is a defense against both personal incompetence, but also, against #*&$ you contracts where you don't get paid. I actually won't consult with a particular PhRMA company that starts with J (nor will anyone in the industry that charges any less than four digits an hour and with fidelity insurance) due to a past ED there being a jerk about paying his bills and having to claim my pay from E&O and having the insurance company sue the PhRMA company for the compensation (he did get fired over the matter as there were multiple at the same time, but E&O covers your own paycheck as well).
There's actually a private rule that I have that I would never sign a contract with an organization that leaves off a mandate that I need it, because that means to me that the organization doesn't know what they're purchasing with my time. If you are asking me to weigh in as a clinical trials/statistical consultant for a regulatory matter, and the client doesn't know what that entails, I don't want to risk my own neck educating the client on the fallacies. It's lead me to avoid some very lucrative contracts, but on the other hand, I don't want to be stuck with a group that doesn't know the way the FDA rolls.
Also, for the record, I only do this when I'm off in the fall from federal work. These gigs are feast and famine, it's great when they come up, but you have to be a certain kind of hardcore to string these together for a career. That's why I'm still an academician/civil servant. Yes, I could possibly make more money, but it's a whole different kind of stress to do this all day, all the time, and having to deal with Faustian bargains with PhRMA where you're worried about the business Golden Rule (any situation where the result is I have more gold rules the method). Efficient breach of contracts, double dealing, these are all aspects of the industry that you learn the hard way. That being said, it's a nice sideline, but for me, I like my day job too much to stress myself out pursuing this for a major occupation. It's already a fairly time-consuming occupation for me to be married to a careerist.
Last edited:
