Medical

Pharmaceutical Medicine as a Career

Doctors choose to enter the pharmaceutical industry for several reasons:

1. They may have been involved in clinical trials in the hospitals and enjoy the excitement of early phase drug development work. Joining the industry provides them with the opportunity to have more input into the direction of clinical trial programmes and more input into global protocols. The pharmaceutical industry also understands the valuable contribution that doctors in Australia make to global programmes and are keen to recruit them.
2. They would like more business focus. They may have already completed a business degree or run a successful practice and are now seeking to extend this by developing a corporate career. There career options may include a medical role, or a business development/marketing role. Working on the business aspects of the pharmaceutical industry the doctors bring an in-depth understanding of medical practice and can therefore contribute to strategic decisions regarding which products to develop. This involves understanding how to best treat a patient, what the patients needs are, what are the needs of the patients caregivers, and relating this to how the products work. The decision to develop a new pharmaceutical product requires input at many different levels and a medically qualified person can make a significant contribution to the process.

Career paths for doctors include staying in Australia and taking on more senior roles, being involved in Asia-Pacific wide programmes, developing more of a business focus and moving into Marketing roles, transferring to head office in the USA or Europe and being involved in global projects.

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