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REBECA Practice: Medical Scientific Liaison

Medical Scientific Liaison

Bridging Science and Practice

Introduction

The treatment of a disease to improve patient health while preserving well-being is constantly evolving. This evolution is driven not only by the emergence of new therapeutic products and treatments but also by real-life medical practice, which provides new data and unexpected positive or negative results. Although extensive studies and clinical trials are conducted during the pre-commercialization phase of a product, they usually do not cover the entire population with its comorbidities and idiosyncrasies, nor the full spectrum of diverse human beings.
More importantly, the commercialization of a medicine or device is approved for use based on its demonstrated effectiveness in clinical studies (on-label use). However, healthcare practitioners or prescribers sometimes slightly modify the administration or combine it with other products to adapt to the unique health situations of their patients. Sometimes, it is the patients themselves who change the dosage or method of taking the medicine and then inform their healthcare practitioners about it.
For this reason, it is of utmost importance for companies supplying these products to keep the medical community updated with the latest scientific data about their products to ensure their safety and efficacy. At the same time, companies must gather all field information to craft scientific and medical strategies. To facilitate this important scientific exchange, companies create a specific role: the Medical Scientific Liaison (MSL).
The MSL, or equivalent titles within a company, is a professional within medical affairs teams who engages with key opinion leaders (KOLs) to maintain this scientific exchange. KOLs are individuals whom healthcare professionals (HCPs) and researchers look to for credible medical information. During these engagements, the MSL works to develop an ethical peer-to-peer relationship with KOLs in healthcare, academia, payer, and government organizations to disseminate scientific information, gather insights, and evaluate KOLs’ expert opinions.
The MSL is expected to be a trusted scientific point of contact within the company, providing scientific information that guides the evolution of medical care. MSLs must maintain their scientific integrity by fostering truthful medical and scientific communications that are non-promotional and not misleading. The roles of MSLs and Key Account Managers or other commercial professionals need to be clearly distinct within the company; they are separated into different departments and have different KPIs. MSLs' performance metrics are never linked to the prescription rate or sales metrics of the product.

Practice Case

Ready to get a taste of what the work of a medical scientific liaison could look like?

Try the REBECA Practice Case for field application specialist. Remember, this practice case does not prepare you to become a field application specialist, it only aids you to better decide if this is your type of profession.

After completing the case, please do the reflection exercises; it will help you to clarify what you have experienced and take decisions about your career.

Requisites to perform this practice case

Biomedical or medical academic background is needed to perform this task.

 

Who are you?

You are a field medical scientific liaison working for a pharmaceutical company.

Acknowledgments

This practice case has been created thanks to the input of these clinical research associate:

  • Julio Pozueta, Senior Medical Scientific Liaison at Bayer
  • Brian Molloy Galiana, Medical Scientific Liaison at MSD
  • Alba Jimenez Segovia, Medical Scientific Liaison at IQVIA

They also validated this case after its development.

Guided reflections

After this experience, we suggest you reflect on the following questions:

  • Did you find the practice case easy or difficult to accomplish?
  • What was the most engaging task for you? Was it difficult or easy?
  • What was the most challenging task for you? Did you enjoy performing it? Would you see yourself getting better at it?
  • Have you found something new about this profession? What was it? Did it surprise you? Did you like it or dislike it?
  • Do you feel like contacting a scientific journalist in your network and research a little bit about the profession? Where would you find it?

Further information

If you want to know more on the profession, or specialised training information, check the:

You can also follow some of our recommendations to explore careers beyond academia.