Senior Team Member - Medical Advisor -PhD

Job Purpose

Generate and provide scientific know-how in designing promotional strategies, supporting sales force development, assisting with portfolio selection, regulatory, pharmacovigilance, compliance/ethics, and other scientific communications, in order to shape the assigned therapy(s) in an ethical and medically accurate approach

Key Accountabilities (1/6)

Achieve scientific proficiency to drive the development of assigned therapy areas in accordance with the medical strategy

• Keep abreast with the latest medical developments through publications, websites and by attending national & international conferences
• Understand on ground clinical practices by interacting with clinicians, to develop practical knowledge and utilize it to provide closer-to-market product solutions
• Create scientific publications on key therapeutic areas for the Cipla Library and external publishing
• Identify the need, plan for, and select faculty, for organizing advisory boards, RTDs, CMEs, symposia, webcasts, conferences etc., working closely with the Therapy Group Lead

Key Accountabilities (2/6)

Ideate and conceptualize with marketing team to develop promotional strategies to drive India and international business

• Create and curate scientific content and promotional material (such as newsletters, scientific booklets etc.) for online and offline usage by the marketing team during campaigns
• Review medical literature created by reporting team members
• Create medical material to support new product launches
• Share latest product and therapy developments in the market, with the marketing team via reports
• Drive and conduct post-marketing surveys with doctors and other allied stakeholders for the allocated therapy areas
• Develop medical content to support patient engagement for the product
• Provide medical resources (such as product brochures) to equip the field force with accurate content to tackle doctor queries

Key Accountabilities (3/6)

Identify therapeutic gaps in the product portfolio and suggest new molecules/ formulations/ incremental innovations in order to contribute towards building a robust therapy-product mix

• Identify, analyse and recommend new molecules, devices and products for the domestic and global business, by studying market trends
• Provide a medical opinion and rationale to assist the portfolio, API and in-licensing teams in selecting the appropriate portfolio mix
• Analyse and recommend incremental enhancements in the management of product lifecycles, in line with the changing treatment paradigms and new developments in therapy
• Develop protocols for research projects in liaison with clinical trials department and get approval from group lead

Key Accountabilities (4/6)

Build team capability by conducting training sessions and guiding team members on how to develop their competence

• Develop content and material for medical trainings of internal team and sales team
• Develop induction training program with content for new team members
• Track effectiveness of trainings regularly by means of feedback from the team as well as ROI achieved from them

Key Accountabilities (5/6)

Build external advisor relationship to help steer the therapy market

• Identify new KOLs and initiate contact with them
• Engage existing and new KOLs through various scientific activities
• Leverage KOLs and therapy consultants for strategy development, training and understanding therapy landscape as well as for potential hiring

Key Accountabilities (6/6)

Ensure ethical actions by adhering to regulations and laws

• Ensure compliance and adhere to internal policies, local and international regulations for scientific, promotional materials, activities and therapy/ product related queries from internal and external stakeholders
• Prepare, review and update package inserts of products as per the latest regulatory requirements
• Prepare and review SOPs, guidelines and checklists used by the R&D teams
• Ensure timely reporting of drug safety and quality complaints received from the PV team, to related authorities
• Coordinate with the Legal team to review agreements, CDAs, CTA to be compliant

Major Challenges

• Keeping pace with the frequently changing compliance requirements, market dynamics/ therapy treatment trends and medical information overload
• Managing multiple stakeholders and interdependencies on other cross functional teams
• Scientific communication being highly regulated for the pharmaceutical sector, poses a challenge in terms of off-label promotions and copyright limitation on images (graphs, tables, algorithms etc.) making it difficult to balance between ethics and marketing needs

Key Interactions (1/2)

• Marketing Team for promotional inputs (daily)
• Sales Team (India & international) for field queries, CME meetings and refresher, launches twice a month etc. (daily)
• Clinical Trials for discussions on trial protocols, status and other inputs (need based) 
• Pharmacovigilance & CQA for product quality and SAE complaints (need based)
• Compliance & Ethics to ensure promotional   activities in line with compliance guidelines (need based)
• Legal for reviewing   contracts, copyrights   and disclaimers (need based)
• Corporate for   press releases, Cipla Med, counsel activities (need based) 
• Finance for financial discrepancies (need based)
• Art department for review and suggestions on conference collaterals and product pack designs (need based)
• Learning and Development for Esproute related & training (need based)
• Medical QAG for SOP review (monthly)
• JP precision (Cipla Subsidiary. Division specific.)
• Cipla Health (Day to day working for some colleagues)
• R&D/ Portfolio for product development (need based)
• Packaging/ Art Team for new product package design (need based)
• Library (daily for research articles)
• Corporate Communications & CiplaMed for therapy related inputs (2-3 times a week)

Key Interactions (2/2)

• Conference Committees for publications, lectures, posters etc. for conferences (need based)
• Chemists for competitor insights and patient feedbacks (bi-monthly)
• DCGI for product approval presentation (occasional)
• KOLs for knowledge sharing (need based)
• Medical and nonmedical institutes/ associations/ Paramedics to partner in research projects, educational activities, etc. (need based)
• Marketing/ Medical agencies for promotional inputs (need based)

Dimensions (1/2)

• Specialties: 1-3
• Sub Therapies: 1-5
• Brands: 5-15
• Marketing team strength supported: 3-12
• Field force supported: 200-2500
• Scientific resource creation (medical abstracts, product guides, publications, CiplaMed inputs etc.): ~70-100 documents/ deliverables per year
• Deliverables for medico marketing initiatives (LBL, new product launch, campaigns, webcasts, conferences, surveys etc.): ~80-100 documents/ deliverables per year
• Training material creation (Esproute, refreshers, Nalanda, product launch training, PMT, BM/SM etc.): ~50 documents/ deliverables per year
• Conference participations: ~4 per year
• Fieldwork: ~1-6 field visits per year
• KOL development: ~1-3 new KOLs per year
• Regulatory/ PV deliverables (SOP, package inserts, CDAs, PV queries etc.): ~20-25 per year

Dimensions (2/2)

Key Decisions (1/2)

• CiplaMed content approval (created by outsourced team)
• Addressing field & doctor queries
• Approval of scientific communication for doctors/ field queries
• Training material for field

Key Decisions (2/2)

Approval required from Group Lead on the following

• KOL engagement activities
• Topics for scientific meetings
• Organising online training module
• Portfolio suggestions
• Strategies for promotion of drugs
• Deciding field work agenda and territory
• HO initiated scientific events
• Approval of promotional inputs
• Scientific publishing/ clinical trial related activities
• Attending conferences/ conducting field work
• Drafting patient education material
• New product activities
• Package insert content, promotional inputs

Education Qualification

MPharm, Masters in Biological Sciences / Pharmacy / PhD/ MBBS/ MD

Relevant Work Experience

• Minimum 4 years experience for Master’s in Biological Sciences / Pharmacy
• 0-2 years’ experience with PhD