How physicians can find jobs in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries [PODCAST]

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“I’m now CMO at a private biotech company focused on developing therapies for patients with rare endocrine diseases. We are conducting a trial in the U.S., Europe, and Israel.  I mention this to raise the possibility of travel in pharma/biotech roles.  In most companies, roles are both ‘functional’ (i.e., clinical development, medical affairs, marketing) and geographic (i.e., global, regional). I’ve had both global roles, being responsible for the entire world strategy for a therapy, and U.S. specific roles where I’ve focused on the U.S. only.  Some roles, like medical science liaison, are smaller areas of focus (state or several states).  I enjoy travel and have been able to do so extensively; however, there are roles where travel is limited.  One of the great things about physician roles – there is a broad range of careers that can be had, and it’s likely there is one to fit your life needs!

There is a need for physicians in pharma/biotech, and physicians need to more exposure to this career path.  I encourage doctors to network; connect with people to learn and make your name known.  My final piece of advice is to understand how all of your past experiences, whether leadership, management, or research translate into supporting your resume for a role in pharma/biotech; do not undersell your experience!”

Nerissa Kreher is a pediatric endocrinologist and founder, The IndustryMDCoach.

She shares her story and discusses her KevinMD article, “How physicians can find jobs in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.”

This episode is sponsored by Elsevier Health. Looking to update your personal or professional medical library? Shop Elsevier Health’s Holiday Sale and save up to 35% on your purchase of medical books! Plus, you can take an extra 5% off your order with code KEVINMD at checkout. Take advantage of the biggest sale of the year from Elsevier, the world-leading provider of medical books and reference materials. Shop us.elsevierhealth.com now through December 31.

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Hosted by Kevin Pho, MD, The Podcast by KevinMD shares the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from.

Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show, where we share the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from. My name is Kevin Pho, founder and editor of KevinMD. Today on the show, we have Nerissa Kreher. She’s a pediatric endocrinologist, and she’s the founder of the IndustryMDCoach. She wrote the KevinMD article “How physicians can find jobs in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.” Nerissa, welcome to the show.

Nerissa Kreher: Thank you.

Kevin Pho: So we’ll get into your article in a little bit, but first off, can you share your story and your journey to where you are today?

Nerissa Kreher: Sure, happy to. So I’m a pediatric endocrinologist, as you mentioned, and during my fellowship, I knew that I wanted to enter a clinical research career. So I stayed on at Riley Hospital for Children, where I trained, for a year as junior faculty, and then my family needed to move to the Boston area. And of course, I pursued an academic clinical research career that, unfortunately or fortunately, did not come to fruition. There weren’t a lot of roles available for pediatric endocrinologists at the academic centers at the time, so I ended up in the pharmaceutical industry. My first role was a medical affairs director position, and I was supporting a growth hormone product, so it was a very natural transition. In medical affairs, I was focused on a phase 4 clinical registry looking at safety and efficacy of this growth hormone.

And soon after, a couple of years later, I had the opportunity to move to a different company and do more clinical development work. So of course, that is then focused on phase 1 through phase 3 clinical trials with products that aren’t yet approved through a regulatory agency. I did that strategically to really round out my experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Now, 15 years later, I have my second chief medical officer role. That’s much more of a strategic role, and I’ve also gone from larger pharma biotech companies into smaller companies, often private, supported by venture capital funds, and I also had an opportunity to take one of those companies through the public markets, doing an IPO. So I’ve really been able to span large to small biotech, as well as private and public, which has been a lot of fun.

Kevin Pho: So what are some of the qualities for physicians who choose a pharmaceutical or a biotech non-clinical role? Do you find that a lot of these physicians go into these roles straight from residency, or do you find that some physicians have a clinical career first and transition later on in their careers?

Nerissa Kreher: Yes, it can be both. We see people transition early, and we see people transition later. One of my mentors, and a person that I looked up to during my training, was a professor who spent her whole career, and in retirement moved into the pharmaceutical industry. And then compare that to me: I moved in a year after fellowship. So there’s a wide spectrum, and it’s a question I often get. Is there a certain background, a certain specialty? And really, there is a huge variety of different physicians in our industry.

Kevin Pho: And what are some common roles within the pharmaceutical and biotech industry for physicians?

Nerissa Kreher: Sure. So I group them into three different major roles. The first is clinical development. That’s usually focused on products that aren’t yet approved. You’re writing clinical trials, you’re doing a lot of regulatory work to get a product approved. Then there’s medical affairs. That’s a more outward-facing role that physicians can have, so you’re liaising with key opinion leaders in the space. You might be running advisory boards to get information from physicians that are in the specialty of interest. And then the other area is drug safety, or pharmacovigilance, and so that, of course, is a much more inward-focused role, where physicians utilize their background and knowledge to look at safety signals from a variety of drugs.

Kevin Pho: So let’s now transition into your KevinMD article, “How physicians can find jobs in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.” Now, for those who haven’t read your article, can you just walk my audience through it and maybe share the story of why you decided to write it?

Nerissa Kreher: Sure. So I tell the story of my transition, which I’ve shared, and then I talk about the fact that there’s a need for physicians in the pharmaceutical industry. And at the same time, I think there’s a need for some of our physician colleagues looking for different ways to use their medical training and residency training, and the pharmaceutical industry should be on that list of non-clinical careers. So as we really saw COVID hitting, lots more physician burnout, I realized that I was sitting between two different sets of people, my physician colleagues and the pharmaceutical industry that I know very well. And I decided that I would build the IndustryMDCoach to help link these two groups of people together that really don’t have a great link. So that was really the impetus of the article, to be able to share with physicians that this is a career path that they should consider.

Kevin Pho: So if I’m a physician, and maybe I’m furloughed, or maybe I’m thinking of making a transition out of clinical medicine, where do I start, and what do I do?

Nerissa Kreher: So first, think about your personality. Of those three different areas that I mentioned, are you more of an introvert? Are you more of an extrovert? Do you like delving into lots of detailed data, or are you someone that thinks more big picture? So if you think about your personality, you can see how someone that likes delving into data might gravitate towards drug safety. Someone that’s more of an extrovert and more interested in strategy might gravitate more towards medical affairs. Someone that’s been in academics and run clinical trials as a principal investigator might gravitate towards clinical development. So that would be one approach, thinking about your background and your interests.

The other thing to consider is what kind of specialist are you, or if you’re not a specialist, what kinds of disease states do you take care of and do you enjoy learning about and talking about? One thing that I have clients do is think about a list of the top 10 drugs that they prescribe, and then match those drugs to the companies that manufacture and market those drugs. Those might be companies that you want to take a look at. What job openings do they have for physicians? So those are a couple of tactical ways to think about all of the different functional areas that you might pursue, as well as specific companies that you might pursue as well.

Kevin Pho: Typically, is there any additional training that’s needed for physicians who transition out of clinical medicine and into the pharmaceutical and biotech industry?

Nerissa Kreher: That’s a great question. So I would say no. Certainly, if you look at my LinkedIn profile, you’ll see that I have my MBA. I did an executive MBA during my career, so I actually was able to have one of the companies pay for my executive MBA. It’s not at all necessary. I did it because I wanted to learn more about the business side of things, but it’s not at all necessary. The other thing that you might see are leadership courses. In medical affairs, there are some certifications that you can get. Those are nice-to-haves, but absolutely not necessary.

Kevin Pho: And what’s the life like of a physician in a non-clinical role in one of these industries? How does compensation compare, and what’s the day-to-day life like compared to someone in clinical medicine?

Nerissa Kreher: Sure. So the day-to-day life can really vary depending on the role. A safety physician, of course, is likely not to do a whole lot of travel, whereas a medical affairs physician might do more travel, and clinical development physicians are kind of in between. I’ve had the opportunity to really travel around the world, which I’ve enjoyed. That’s been a great, important part of the career for me, but it’s not necessary. So some people ask, “Well, do I have to travel?” No, there are certainly roles that you don’t have to.

I would say one of the key differences is the variety of things you do every day and the flexibility you have. So I don’t have a patient waiting for me at 8:30 in the morning. I have a little more flexibility about when I start my day, versus having to be in the clinic. One hour I might be thinking about something very detail-oriented, like writing a protocol, inclusion and exclusion criteria, and the next hour I might be preparing for a presentation to a group of investors. And so it’s invigorating from the standpoint of really being able to do things differently day in and day out, and a huge variety of different things that I think really keeps my brain going and keeps me learning all the time.

Kevin Pho: And in general, how does the compensation compare to, say, a physician in a clinical role?

Nerissa Kreher: Sure. So of course, that’s going to vary a lot based on the specialty. I would say a starting role for most physicians in industry, an associate director to director-level role, is probably going to be in the low to mid-200s. So if you’re an internist or another kind of specialist, a neurologist, maybe that’s very comparable. If you’re an orthopedic surgeon, that might not be comparable. But the important thing to know is that the compensation package isn’t only about your base salary. There’s a bonus that most people get every year that can be a large part of the compensation as well, so somewhere from, on the low side, at a starting position, 15 percent, and it might go all the way up to 25. So you can see how that quickly would add to your salary.

And then, importantly, lots of different benefits, like 401(k) matching. There might be stock purchase plans, where you can buy company stock at a discount. In smaller companies, maybe stock options. So it’s really important to think about the overall compensation package and not just that base salary.

Kevin Pho: And in general, how competitive are these roles? Do you have a lot of applicants for these non-clinical physician roles, or is it fairly wide open?

Nerissa Kreher: Right. So certainly we need more physicians in the pharmaceutical industry as a whole. So from a competitive standpoint, we do need more people. It gets competitive when it gets higher up, or if people are looking for a specific type of specialty or a specific skill set. If you’re looking at, for example, a clinical development role, and you’re looking for someone who has five or 10 years’ worth of experience in clinical development, that’s when it can start to get kind of competitive. But again, there are a number of roles where physicians can enter without pharmaceutical experience.

Kevin Pho: And in terms of looking for these roles specifically, do they contact the companies directly? Are there recruiters? Or do they find coaches like yourself? What’s the best way for physicians to find these opportunities?

Nerissa Kreher: I think that going directly to the company certainly can work. A lot of companies have their own internal HR. That’s tough, though, because you can get lost in the mix. You submitted into the ether, and you don’t hear back, and you don’t know what’s going on. So if you can find a recruiter that specializes in hiring physicians for the pharmaceutical industry, I think that’s a really important step. Certainly, my business is a very niche business. There aren’t many people like me doing this. My network includes some of those recruiters, so that’s one of the things I offer to clients, being able to build that network more easily for them. So I think you can do it in multiple different ways, but certainly finding a recruiter can help you get past some of the blank space of just submitting to a company website.

Kevin Pho: We’re talking to Nerissa Kreher. She’s a pediatric endocrinologist, and she’s the founder of the IndustryMDCoach. She wrote the KevinMD article “How physicians can find jobs in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.” Nerissa, can you share some of the challenges physicians face transitioning into this non-clinical role?

Nerissa Kreher: So one of the things that I coach people about is making sure they understand that you have to work as a team player in the pharmaceutical industry. It’s typically highly matrixed, and the physician is no longer the final decision-maker. So that’s one really important consideration: that even when they feel that their idea or their approach would be the best, it may not always be the approach that the team decides to take. So you have to bring a level of humility, and you also have to bring the interest in being a forever learner and learning from other team members. So I think that’s one thing that the transition requires, which is different than in clinical practice, where the physician is oftentimes the ultimate decision-maker, or at least very high on the decision-making totem pole.

Kevin Pho: And my final question, Nerissa, what is your take-home message that you want to leave with the KevinMD audience?

Nerissa Kreher: So my take-home message is two parts. One, if you’re interested in the pharmaceutical industry, really build out your network of people that work in our industry. So think about building your relationships with the sales representative from a drug company, from the medical science liaison that might visit your office. Really build out that network. And finally, as physicians, we’re perfectionists, and people often want to check off all the different tick boxes of a job description before they would consider applying. It’s really important that we let some of that perfectionism go and allow ourselves to take a chance and apply, even if we don’t have that three years of pharmaceutical experience that the job description might say. It’s still worth applying and trying.

Kevin Pho: And how can people reach you?

Nerissa Kreher: Right. So on my website, the IndustryMDCoach. I also have a Facebook page, the same name, IndustryMDCoach, and my email address is [email protected].

Kevin Pho: Nerissa, thank you so much for sharing your time and insight, and thanks again for being on the show.

Nerissa Kreher: Thank you, Kevin.

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