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      The Medical Science Liaison:

      An A to Z Guide

      Second Edition

      A book by

      ERIN ALBERT WITH CATHLEEN SASS

      © 2011 Erin Albert. All rights reserved.

      No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the CEO of Pharm, LLC.

      Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. The information contained herein is not necessarily the opinion of the author or publisher.

      Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed by trademarks. In all instances where the author or publisher is aware of a claim, the trademarks have been noted where applicable. The inclusion of a trademark does not imply an endorsement or judgment of a product or service of another company, nor does it imply an endorsement or judgment by another company of this book or the opinions contained herein.

      First published by AuthorHouse, Bloomington, IN, 2007. First edition ISBN: 978-1-4343-3750-4

      Second Edition ISBN: 978-1-4566-0430-1

      Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com

       http://www.eBookIt.com

      To my mom, Dorothy, dad, John, and brother, Mark -

      for always reminding me that life is not a dress rehearsal

      —Erin

      In Memory of Mac Williamson

      —Cathy

      Introduction: The History of the MSL

      Many know that the origin of the Medical Science Liaison (MSL) came out of Upjohn. What is not largely known, however, is the drug that started the MSL movement: it was tolbutamide (Orinase^®). According to the text, A Century of Caring: The Upjohn Story by Robert Carlisle, the first ever MSL program was initiated by marketing to establish rapport and provide educational awareness to doctors before they were able to write prescriptions, during medical school. In 1967, the program was started and seeded by sales professionals that had, “intense interest in science, [had] high social skills, and recognize[d] that they [were] no longer detailing products”.¹

      The MSLs began calling on medical schools and thus, a movement was born. Upjohn had been mostly unknown to medical students, but after just 6 years of the MSL program, “Upjohn was one of the best-known”¹ companies to medical students. The entire onus of the MSL was to provide education in the form of monographs, access to internal researchers, and assistance for external educational programs. The program was conceptualized and developed a mission to provide appropriate use of oral diabetic drugs, which at the time was a novel approach to diabetes.¹

      Today, there are thousands of MSLs across the country, in hundreds of disease states and therapeutic areas. As will be explored further in this book, MSL job descriptions, professional backgrounds, and job motivators can vary widely from company to company. This text will discuss who the MSL is, what the MSL does, and where the role might be headed in the future. The approach we are taking with the book is to look at the product life cycle of the MSL, so to speak. We begin with a professional with a long history in the world of pharmaceuticals, Dr. Stan Bernard. We not only ask him about the past history of the MSL world, but we also explore his ideas on what the future may hold for the profession at the end of this book.

      The Past and Future of MSLs: Interview with Stan Bernard, MD, MBA

      Stan Bernard, MD, MBA is President of Bernard Associates (www.BernardAssociatesLLC.com), a pharmaceutical and health care industry management consulting firm offering strategic planning, marketing, medical marketing, competitive simulations/planning, and business development services. Dr. Bernard is nationally-recognized as a consultant, speaker, and author. He has published over 50 book chapters and articles on pharmaceutical and health care topics. Dr. Bernard is a former Senior Fellow at The Wharton School of Business where he initiated and taught in the “Pharmaceutical Management” course for fourteen years.

      Previously, Dr. Bernard served as a Consulting Principal at A.T. Kearney and held several executive positions at Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Company. He served as U.S. Product Manager for the launch of the cholesterol-lowering drug Pravachol^®, Bristol-Myers Squibb’s most successful pharmaceutical product. He served as Associate Medical Director, where he co-founded the first doctor-only Medical Science Liaison (MSL) group in the U.S.. Dr. Bernard also served as U.S. Managed Care Medical Director, the first person to hold such a position in the pharmaceutical industry, and as U.S. Director-Pharmacoeconomics. He also worked in Worldwide Business Development and U.S. Medical Operations. Dr. Bernard received his M.B.A. in marketing and health care management from the Wharton School of Business. He received his Medical Degree from Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Bernard can be reached via email at: [email protected] and via phone at: (908) 234-2704.

      History

      As you know, Upjohn started the MSL function in the late 1960’s. However, the first MSLs came from sales. Subsequently, other programs moved to professionals with a science background.² Can you share your experience on what generated that switch, and how the scientist MSL began?

      In 1988, Jan Leschly was the President of E.R. Squibb. A pharmacist by training and an experienced businessman, Jan believed that individuals with combined backgrounds in business and science would represent the next wave of professionals in the pharmaceutical industry and provide Squibb with a competitive advantage. Toward this end, Jan envisioned a sales force composed exclusively of business-oriented doctors.

      In 1989, Squibb hired David Best, an MD/MBA from the advertising industry, to turn Jan’s vision into reality. David recruited me from Squibb’s Worldwide Division to help him create and implement the first doctor-only, regionally-based field force. Together we hired, trained, and managed a total of 12 doctors, predominantly physicians. We called this concept “Medical Services Managers” or MSMs to distinguish it from competitors’ medical science liaisons (“MSLs”). At that time, MSLs were typically top sales representatives without advanced scientific degrees who called on doctors to communicate scientific information and address more complex product questions.

      From the outset, MSMs were designed to be different from MSLs and other sales representatives. As doctors, MSMs could relate to and interact with key opinion leaders and other doctors as “peers”. They shared a comparable level of scientific training, experiences, and knowledge with their physician customers. This enabled MSMs to earn the respect and time of physicians. In fact, BMS marketers found that MSMs were spending dramatically more time with physicians than sales representatives.

      The roles of MSMs also differed dramatically from those of MSLs. We trained MSMs to handle several novel tasks, such as the management of regional and local opinion leaders, including speaker training; identification and placement of Phase IIIB and IV clinical

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