What Do Medical Science Liaisons Do

I am a Medical Science Liaison (MSL) for a pharmaceutical distribution company. Medical science liaisons are vital for the success of all pharma companies.

We work the entire lifecycle of a product and provide insight on how they are used effectively. I also serve as a scientific peer and provide resources about the product to the medical and scientific community. I work as a scientific expert to internal colleagues and co-workers at pharma companies.

My job consists of keeping up to date with the latest developments in the industry to help doctors get acquainted with pharma companies’ products services and businesses.

My primary job as a medical science liaison is to set up and keep up peer to peer relationships between the leading opinion doctors, in the biz we call those Kol or key opinion leaders at major universities and hospitals.

Reading a lot of papers and setting up meetings, calls, emails, and direct contact. It’s a people job. You get up for work and you have to open the laptop to check out the latest developments from journals, internal correspondence, and meeting your company’s goals and objectives. You have to be consistent and accountable.

Pros

• You get to meet a lot of very influential doctors and researchers in the medical community, it opens you the doors to do networking and grow professionally.
• I travel a lot. Big pharma labs always send you all over the country and abroad to meetings, conferences, and the likes.
• You are constantly learning new things and get to learn a lot from the insights and behind the scenes stories of every pharmaceutical product in your charge.
• In some countries, the MSL community is even organized and you have to be board certified, this is not the case in Venezuela; we hope to have that greater level of organization and look up to the kinds of work that the EU and USA/Canada have regarding the MSL position

Cons

• You are tightly bound by corporate internal regulations which can be overwhelming and greatly determine how your relationships with your co workers will be. You have to adhere to strict guidelines and you need to have a sense of what’s convenient to say or not to say at any given moment: an inadequate comment and you’re putting a product in jeopardy and causing the company a loss of money.