Pharmaceutical industry offers some excellent opportunities to students to have a successful career in pharma sector. Unlike the popular belief that only pharmacy graduates or those with research background find place in pharma companies, there are lots of opportunities for students from other specializations as well.
Opportunities for medical graduates – Medical graduates can aspire for multiple opportunities within the pharma sector. Some of these include medical writing, which might cover regulatory affairs, publication or content development for physicians, patients, sales team or even internal company newsletters; program management or client servicing for global companies; and Medical Service Liaisons (MSLs) with the focus on scientific selling. Considering that global pharma companies will launch new products in India, there will be a huge demand for MSLs.
Other areas where medical graduates can contribute include medico marketing involving work in/with the marketing teams of pharma companies in brand management & medical affairs in the areas of publications, scientific communication, medical information management, etc.
Opportunities for law graduates – It takes multidisciplinary teams with a variety of skills to develop and market effective & safe drugs. Pharma companies are seeking to hire graduates with additional knowledge relevant to the pharma industry, like professionals from law or patent or IPR understanding in addition to the requisite domain knowledge. Relevant understanding of the allied subjects in addition to core clinical/pharmaceutical knowledge will be key differentiators when companies select employees for such specific roles. Law graduates can also look at KPOs in addition to pharma companies.
Pharma sales – Pharma sales is another area where students who have passion for selling and aspire to make their career in sales can excel and have successful career. The pharmaceutical-sales field is popular because it offers excellent salary potential, great benefits, flexibility, opportunity for growth, and many other benefits. As demand for medicines rise, so do the sales in pharma firms. ‘The pharmaceutical industry is among the largest, most stable, and fastest growing businesses in the entire world,’ writes Anne Clayton in her book, Insight into a Career in Pharmaceutical Sales.
Marketing & Branding– Marketing has been an integral part of businesses for last several decades. It is an approach that is responsible for the world’s most successful brands. It is rooted in the fundamentals to know yourself, your consumer & your competition and develop strategies accordingly. Marketing degree holder can find excellent opportunities in pharma industry. Marketing activities include market research, product & positioning strategy, pricing, packaging, distribution, promotion etc. Marketing research is done to find out who wants your product and under what conditions will they buy it. Marketing strategy can thus be formulated as per the needs of the target market.
New avenues being created – Pharma companies in India are expanding their sales force and medical affairs teams. With the increased role of regulators in these developed markets, new career avenues are being created in areas like health economics and outcome research, market access, and account management.
Rationalization of jobs in developed markets has led companies to expand and provide services to global pharma companies. Jobs are being created for skills like medical writing, medical affairs, tele-detailing, digital marketing, analytics & information research, technology, graphics design, medical editing, other creative capabilities, and a host of other skills.
Changes required in pharmacy & medical syllabi to meet the evolving needs – Unlike in the West, India does not have specialized medical writing and communication courses. In fact, for the most part, medical writing and communication is not a part of the current pharma and medical syllabi in India.
This is a significant gap that needs to be bridged. Such courses will enable different skills to come together. So, apart from domain and technical knowledge, individuals will get to understand the challenges and nuances involved in effectively communicating medical/scientific information to a broad range of target audience, including physicians, patients, sales force, regulators, and payors.