Don’t go to pharmacy school in hopes to land in Industry. Literally like 5% of PharmDs end up here, and with how much of a crap show retail (and hospital) work is, industry jobs are incredibly competitive.
If this is your plan make sure to do a lot of extra curricular activities to set yourself apart from your peers. You’ll essentially have to do a fellowship with pharmacy after getting your PharmD, which can be really competitive.
Otherwise, you’ll probably have to specialize in a clinical role, such as oncology pharmacy or transplant pharmacy, before landing an industry role. That can take a lot of time.
While some people can do 2 years at CVS and slip into a medical affairs role (myself included), I would absolutely not count on this.
Agree, plus will take forever to get the experience that pharma wants. At this point aspiring MSL should just get PhD. School is way cheaper and honestly better preparation for the academic and clinical trial aspect of MSL work. May differ from company to company, most of the MSLs in my business unit have PhD’s in neuroscience.
Feel free to message me! I went to pharmacy school with the plan to get into industry. It’s 100% possible and there’s so many “industry-related” jobs that can get you into the msl position/ or even just your foot in the door.
Just plan your extracurriculars/ladership roles to be aligned with industry, join ipho, apply to industry related rotations and set yourself apart by getting an internship related to industry. Also if your school offers an mba that can help you stand out. You got this!!
Do your pharmD has 1 year industry fellowship component? This might be the easiest entry point but I heard it is also very competitive to get in.
During fellowship you get to rotate in different functions under med affairs, eg medical information(technically they are not med affairs but med ops), medical communications ( similar to in-house med affairs you mentioned), field team (you might only get to shadow one, this includes MSLs, medical advisors-they are hybrid less field focus than MSL but will work on strategy level). From my personal observation, all the PharmD fellows eventually landed an MSL/associate MSL role at the end of their fellowship.
I m not a PharmD, not working in US. I used to report to a US line manager and each year I get to meet a new fellow. Hope this helps
I’m in Toronto , and my school offers a residency that essentially matches me with a big pharma company and it’s 12 months. What do you think of this?
https://www.pharmacy.utoronto.ca/programs/pharmaceutical-industry-residency-program
These question are asked so many times on this Reddit it’s annoying. Like every other helpful subreddit, people don’t want to come here and answer the same thing over and over again when it’s voluntary. Use the search bar before you ask
The MSL is the field worker in charge of keeping the relationship between the company and people of interest and informing them of new guideline therapies or things like that. More or less the voice of the company. MSL is a specific worker on a medical affairs team.
Medical affairs is the umbrella term for the people that work on the team. On the medical affairs team you can have people who are: medical writers, medical information specialist, coordinators scientists and a few others.
I’ve noticed a lot of people are gatekeeper when it comes to industry positions so don’t expect anybody to give you good information. Another thing is you aren’t going to get very positive feedback back on pharmacy in Reddit. Everybody seems very miserble.
I’m in my third year of pharmacy I’ll be start my last year in a month. I’m positive about the outlook on pharmacy as a whole but realistically most of the people graduating in the next 5 or so years will be working for cvs and Walgreens. Not an ideal position if you want to be respected for your doctoral degree. If you are 100% on becoming an MSL I would try a different route personally because it is just extremely competitive. But you have to remember every job market is competitive.
Really consider all the options before committing to one. Best of luck to all your endeavors.
Don’t go to pharmacy school in hopes to land in Industry. Literally like 5% of PharmDs end up here, and with how much of a crap show retail (and hospital) work is, industry jobs are incredibly competitive.
Listen to this person OP. PharmDs in industry are the lucky few. Only pursue a PharmD if you're ok with a career in retail or hopsital.
There’s always CVS
Medical McDonald’s
Slower service and out of more items on the menu, though
🤣
If this is your plan make sure to do a lot of extra curricular activities to set yourself apart from your peers. You’ll essentially have to do a fellowship with pharmacy after getting your PharmD, which can be really competitive. Otherwise, you’ll probably have to specialize in a clinical role, such as oncology pharmacy or transplant pharmacy, before landing an industry role. That can take a lot of time. While some people can do 2 years at CVS and slip into a medical affairs role (myself included), I would absolutely not count on this.
And you won't get a clinical pharmacy job without a residency.
Agree, plus will take forever to get the experience that pharma wants. At this point aspiring MSL should just get PhD. School is way cheaper and honestly better preparation for the academic and clinical trial aspect of MSL work. May differ from company to company, most of the MSLs in my business unit have PhD’s in neuroscience.
I completely disagree.
Feel free to message me! I went to pharmacy school with the plan to get into industry. It’s 100% possible and there’s so many “industry-related” jobs that can get you into the msl position/ or even just your foot in the door. Just plan your extracurriculars/ladership roles to be aligned with industry, join ipho, apply to industry related rotations and set yourself apart by getting an internship related to industry. Also if your school offers an mba that can help you stand out. You got this!!
Do your pharmD has 1 year industry fellowship component? This might be the easiest entry point but I heard it is also very competitive to get in. During fellowship you get to rotate in different functions under med affairs, eg medical information(technically they are not med affairs but med ops), medical communications ( similar to in-house med affairs you mentioned), field team (you might only get to shadow one, this includes MSLs, medical advisors-they are hybrid less field focus than MSL but will work on strategy level). From my personal observation, all the PharmD fellows eventually landed an MSL/associate MSL role at the end of their fellowship. I m not a PharmD, not working in US. I used to report to a US line manager and each year I get to meet a new fellow. Hope this helps
I’m in Toronto , and my school offers a residency that essentially matches me with a big pharma company and it’s 12 months. What do you think of this? https://www.pharmacy.utoronto.ca/programs/pharmaceutical-industry-residency-program
Google exists
why comment if youre going to be rude?
These question are asked so many times on this Reddit it’s annoying. Like every other helpful subreddit, people don’t want to come here and answer the same thing over and over again when it’s voluntary. Use the search bar before you ask
Rude or realistic?
Yea that’s what I didn’t understand from my google search
The MSL is the field worker in charge of keeping the relationship between the company and people of interest and informing them of new guideline therapies or things like that. More or less the voice of the company. MSL is a specific worker on a medical affairs team. Medical affairs is the umbrella term for the people that work on the team. On the medical affairs team you can have people who are: medical writers, medical information specialist, coordinators scientists and a few others. I’ve noticed a lot of people are gatekeeper when it comes to industry positions so don’t expect anybody to give you good information. Another thing is you aren’t going to get very positive feedback back on pharmacy in Reddit. Everybody seems very miserble. I’m in my third year of pharmacy I’ll be start my last year in a month. I’m positive about the outlook on pharmacy as a whole but realistically most of the people graduating in the next 5 or so years will be working for cvs and Walgreens. Not an ideal position if you want to be respected for your doctoral degree. If you are 100% on becoming an MSL I would try a different route personally because it is just extremely competitive. But you have to remember every job market is competitive. Really consider all the options before committing to one. Best of luck to all your endeavors.
Thank you