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imkim01
Is there anyone who will work for pharmaceutical companies? If you don't want to do research, what other options are available? Any residency required or available?
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If you want to work in Pharma, there are plenty of jobs available for newly minted pharmD's. You generally need to do an intern year with the company after you graduate. Depending on what you are doing the pay is generally going to be less than pharmacy practice...but there is upward mobility. I think there are only three or four areas of the country where you will find work...all of them have insane cost of living...except Indiana (Lilly), but who the heck want's to live in Indiana?
Here are some places to get started:
Lilly visiting scientist program
Merck Careers
Here are some places to get started:
Lilly visiting scientist program
Merck Careers
You can also do clinical trial management with a PharmD. Mostly companies are using RN's for this, but they are starting to use PharmD's now too. You don't have to work for a particular pharmaceutical company to do this, though you certainly can. There are many clinical trial managemant services all over the country. I know someone who is an RN that does this. Company car and 120K+/year. You organize the trial and act as a liason between the scientists conducting it, local physicians, and loacal patients interested in participating.
imkim01 said:
There are lots of options in industry outside of reseach. However even when discussing research realize that there are various types of research that are done in industry all of which requiring differents levels of training. For example that avg PhD or post-doc fellowship in drug development/kinetics would be the person shooting for the "bench work" type of research. However outcomes research is basically more like to large scale drug regimen review to look at postmarketing surveillance (typically all you need is a fellowship (1-2yrs depending on company) straight out of school w/i pharmaceutical industry).
If all of that bores you you have the various MSL (Medical Science Liaison) positions (basically interpreting literature and educating various healthcare professionals and drug reps) which doesn't involve hands on research, but requires you have the ability to be able to interpret the literature. CEC (Clinical Education Consultant) would be the step down from MSL performing similar duties as MSL, but just at a more local level acting primarily as a buffer b/w drug reps and MSL and often more hands on w/ developement of various clinical programs. I think someone else mentioned clinical trial management (basically monitoring for side effects, drug interactions, possibly interviewing pts for inclusion/exclusion criteria); however, this tends to get real boring real quick if it is not something you are really into. The more interesting part indepent of clinical trials may be just working in the drug info department as a previous post said. People that typically fill these positions have usually completed 1-yr of a drug info residency.
As far as salary goes it varies (but both salary and benefits are typically pretty good). The 120k plus company car will vary w/ each company and isn't something I would bank on immediately (depends on the avg where you live; 90-110k may be the avg). The main point you have to realize coming straight out of school is that everyone now has a PharmD so how do you market yourself as a unique candidate. Ten to fifteen years ago you had people w/ just PharmDs making moves in industry (and everywhere else for that matter) w/o any additional training. This template can no longer be used b/c their PharmD was unique at the time and those that excelled in industry typically did so after tenures in a setting that really developed their skills and connections w/ the industry (typically academic medical centers). Obviously there are always exceptions to the rule, but the best way to get into industry (unless you just want to do sales) is to first see if you can get a P4 rotation in industry to develop connections/relationships then shoot for one of their fellowships/residencies as they are very competitive (as you'll see at midyear).
May want to check out http://www.accp.com/rec_searchpos.php and select "pharmaceutical industry" to see the various types of positions available/salaries/requirements. I hope this helps.
Kwizard's post is an excellent source of information.
I would like to add that you may want to take a few classes in Regulatory Affairs and also go that route.
Also do not forget Biotech Companies. They are doing better than big pharma.
There are smaller start ups as well, but you should expect long hours with those, but they usually come with the promise of having your stock options make it big.
Good Luck!
I would like to add that you may want to take a few classes in Regulatory Affairs and also go that route.
Also do not forget Biotech Companies. They are doing better than big pharma.
There are smaller start ups as well, but you should expect long hours with those, but they usually come with the promise of having your stock options make it big.
Good Luck!
