What do you think of working in pharmaceutical industry

[IndustryPharmD]

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This being my line of work, I am naturally interested how much do students know/how much of an interest they have in pharmaceutical industry. I have wanted to work for industry since my second year of pharmacy school, but a lot of students from schools that have little contact with industry do not even view that as an option. I am just curious what people think. 🙂

 

[AznDragon533]

more info =o

 

[12345]

This being my line of work, I am naturally interested how much do students know/how much of an interest they have in pharmaceutical industry. I have wanted to work for industry since my second year of pharmacy school, but a lot of students from schools that have little contact with industry do not even view that as an option. I am just curious what people think. 🙂

So are you still in school or do you currently work in industry? I was very interested in working in industry but kinda got turned off by it once I looked into it more. I wanted to be a MSL but most of the information I found said that I had to either start in sales, have work experience, or do a residency. If you do work in industry please give us some information.

 

[lord999]

I work on the side for two of them. The pay's good. I don't think it's a stable field though (Pfizer Michigan closed, announced job cuts at Novartis...). It's kinda a tough paycheck right now if you want to have a family.

 

[IndustryPharmD]

more info =o

There is a link in my signature to the thread in the Mentor forum where I have posted some general information, and I will be happy to answer any specific questions. Stop by and say hi! 🙂

So are you still in school or do you currently work in industry? I was very interested in working in industry but kinda got turned off by it once I looked into it more. I wanted to be a MSL but most of the information I found said that I had to either start in sales, have work experience, or do a residency. If you do work in industry please give us some information.

I am doing a fellowship with a big pharmaceutical company. While I was at school, I have rotated with another big pharmaceutical company. 🙂 Being an MSL does require additional training, because it is such a large responsibility - essentially, they are working independently (though they do have support network at the home office), and they are responsible for developing contacts with opinion leaders across a significant therapeutic area. So if someone fresh out of school, with little real-world experience (and believe me, if rotations make you realize that you aren't quite prepared to face the world, it only gets worse after you receive your diploma and get kicked out of the protective walls of academia), they can damage the company's efforts across as many as 10 states - not maliciously, but simply because they aren't quite prepared to handle the responsibility. That's why generally MSLs have at least 3 years of experience within a related home-office position before they are allowed to work independently. Also, please refer to the thread in my signature to read a little about industry and ask more specific questions.

I work on the side for two of them. The pay's good. I don't think it's a stable field though (Pfizer Michigan closed, announced job cuts at Novartis...). It's kinda a tough paycheck right now if you want to have a family.

Well, being a part-timer you are always expendable, that's the law of the jungle. And Pfizer is being rather aggressive with their cuts in the workforce - no one quite expected their new CEO to take this approach... but even Pfizer is the one everyone loves to hate, they are a rather efficient machine. 🙂 Being a fellow I know I am in for just a year, but I know the previous fellows have all stayed with the company, and within the job function they were doing their fellowship - so I keep my hopes up. I am willing to transfer to another division or relocate if necessary. 🙂 Life is always harder when you cannot relocate and have to limit your options because of family obligations...

 

[lord999]

Well, being a part-timer you are always expendable, that's the law of the jungle. And Pfizer is being rather aggressive with their cuts in the workforce - no one quite expected their new CEO to take this approach... but even Pfizer is the one everyone loves to hate, they are a rather efficient machine. 🙂 Being a fellow I know I am in for just a year, but I know the previous fellows have all stayed with the company, and within the job function they were doing their fellowship - so I keep my hopes up. I am willing to transfer to another division or relocate if necessary. 🙂 Life is always harder when you cannot relocate and have to limit your options because of family obligations...

Sorry for being vague, the comments was directed at the full-time folks. Contract/part time work is actually much more stable at the moment than internal employment in the industry due to the cuts to their research and marketing departments. With the lack of in-house expertise, picking up the odd job every now and then is much easier than it used to be and also quite a nice paycheck supplement.

No, the industry paychecks don't go toward anything essentially important for me. However, many of those who had made full-time committments find the paychecks rather unstable due to their employment vulnerability. There's no such thing as tenure in the industry, but even then, industry veterans learn quickly that keeping your resume up-to-date is a survival skill as involuntary separation is common. It is this more than the long hours and travel that make raising a family an uncertain proposition while working for the industry (relative to the "safer" positions in pharmacy).

Pfizer's management...well, you and I can discuss this offline, but they lost a lot of good people over the past couple of years. The brain trust/intellectual capital that they had isn't quite there anymore, and it's rather sad. It's a wonderful company to work for, but as I'm sure you've read and observed, Pfizer is going to have to do even more belt-tightening before they can get their fundamentals back together. I expect the new management team to get the company back on track, but they don't really have much time.

As for the MSL side, it looks good in Pfizer since they let go of most of their nonhealth professional representatives. Hopefully, Pfizer will continue the trend of hiring health professionals for marketing positions.

I have no opposition to those who want to work for industry. It's a wonderful field with prospects for interesting work.

 

[IndustryPharmD]

There's no such thing as tenure in the industry, but even then, industry veterans learn quickly that keeping your resume up-to-date is a survival skill as involuntary separation is common. It is this more than the long hours and travel that make raising a family an uncertain proposition while working for the industry (relative to the "safer" positions in pharmacy).

It very much depends on the position. I have very little experience with field position, never having cared for them, but most people I have worked with in two different companies have been there for years (in some cases for decades) and generally their job rotation is within the company itself. It takes so much time and effort to train, say, a competitive intelligence or franchising specialist, that replacing them is counterproductive. Salespeople - they are usually the ones to get cut, because they are so easy to train - my roommate on one rotatio was a sales rep, it was funny to hear her practice reading the scripts. 😀 Of course, great salespeople have job security too - you don't want to loose those who can generate millions... there are very few who can, sadly.

It's a wonderful company to work for, but as I'm sure you've read and observed, Pfizer is going to have to do even more belt-tightening before they can get their fundamentals back together.

For me and my company, Pfizer is someone we love to hate, though it's hard not to admire the efficiency of their marketing machine. Think Lyrica - that's an example of perfect launch strategy, and the drug is a blockbuster, while its real therapeutic advantage over gabapentin is minimal, and with cost difference, me in my part-time community pharmacist incarnation NEVER recommend Lyrica.

As for the MSL side, it looks good in Pfizer since they let go of most of their nonhealth professional representatives. Hopefully, Pfizer will continue the trend of hiring health professionals for marketing positions.

They used to have non-health professionals as MSLs? That's just wrong on so many levels. I mean, how can they discuss clinical reasoning behind an off-label use, for example, if they have no medical background?

I have no opposition to those who want to work for industry. It's a wonderful field with prospects for interesting work.

Yep. 🙂

 

[sdn1977]

They're not supposed to discuss clinical reasoning behind off-label use - they can present studies of off-label uses,but its a fine line between discussing & promoting off label uses - & high fines to pay!

The most stable positions are those in upper level management & clincal launch of products - particularly those who launch rx to otc - mostly in European markets.

So - as lord said - its difficult for family. I have two close friends in the business. One whose marriage & family made it & one whose did not. 50-50 chance there - not much difference from the population demographics, but the job was a significant portion of it - for what its worth.

 

[IndustryPharmD]

They're not supposed to discuss clinical reasoning behind off-label use - they can present studies of off-label uses,but its a fine line between discussing & promoting off label uses - & high fines to pay!

The very function of MSLs and their difference from sales reps is that MSLs can discuss off-label uses and other clinical information because it is "peer to peer". Of course, they cannot promote anything off the package insert, but it's not the MSL's function, they answer unsolicited requests for information, try to generate goodwill among opinion leaders, and gather some field intelligence, among other things. A friend of mine develops training programs for MSLs. 🙂

The most stable positions are those in upper level management & clincal launch of products - particularly those who launch rx to otc - mostly in European markets.

I don't think that upper level management is safe anywhere... they are the first ones to get sacked should things turn sour... in any industry.

So - as lord said - its difficult for family. I have two close friends in the business. One whose marriage & family made it & one whose did not. 50-50 chance there - not much difference from the population demographics, but the job was a significant portion of it - for what its worth.

Not necessarily. My travel is limited to a couple conferences a year, and I work the typical boring 8-5. And I am surrounded by people who have been happily married for decades and worked in the same company/family of companies for just as long. So? It all depends on people's personalities, their marriage chemistry, their specific job functions. Saying that working for industry is dangerous to one's marriage is rather far-fetching. If anything, when I worked retail full-time (and sometimes more than full time) one summer, while still an intern, I would come home and I felt like I didn't want to see or speak to another human being again in my life. And then wake up in the morning, forget it all, and be reasonably happy to start the new day. 😀

 

[ZpackSux]

What happens to an MSL when the drug goes generic... or can an MSL cover more than 1 drug?

 

[IndustryPharmD]

What happens to an MSL when the drug goes generic... or can an MSL cover more than 1 drug?

I think it depends on the company policy, but it is most common for someone to be responsible for one or two therapeutic areas (depending on how many drugs there are in that therapeutic area). If it's a major area for the company with a lot of medications in the pipeline, then one drug loosing its patent protection doesn't make a lot of impact on what that person is trying to do (look at Pfizer prepping the soil for Lyrica ever since Neurontin became generic, long before the launch). If that's a minor area that is not being actively pursued anymore, they get switched to another therapeutic area, or offered another position within the company - or, if the company isn't doing too well - I suppose they get fired. Better not think about unpleasant things, yes? My therapeutic area (though I am by no means an MSL or anything remotely related) has been demoted last year to low-priority. At least it's not going to fall completely off the radar until 2009... At any rate, I think industry is less forgiving to low performers than retail (due to high demand vs. supply), or government (which is being government *mandatory eyeroll here*).

 

[ZpackSux]

When Fragmin was sold to Pfizer by Upjohn, Pfizer decided not to market it against Lovenox. Instead, they kept a corporate Fragmin team... I got to know them quite well while taking Lovenox off the formulary at 3 different hospitals. Now that Fragmin is sold to Eisai, I'm not sure what happened to the Fragmin team at Pfizer.

Friend of mine worked as an MSL for a company...for about 3 months...then she left to go to another company. I need to find out why....