Diagnosis
The doctor has some questions you cant answer about your drugs off-label uses

Prescription
A medical science liaison can help educate you and your doctors

You go in to see one of your top doctors and he has a few clinical questions that address issues that are outside of your product's FDA-approved labeling.

Who are you going to call?

Your company is about to start some clinical trials with a new therapeutic agent. You really hope that they consider an investigator in your territory.

Who can you call to see if any of the potential investigators in your area can be taken into consideration?

One of your promotional physician speakers would like to discuss some of the clinical data with a peer who also has in-depth clinical knowledge in both the disease state and product area.

Who can you call?

The effects of change

The healthcare industry is rapidly evolving. Things are changing all around us. Every day therapeutic agents and devices seem to get more complex, the market is more competitive, and the healthcare providers and institutions are continuing to limit access, all while regulations seem to be increasing. Even with all of this going on, your manager wants you to increase productivity. He seems to send you an endless stream of medical articles, product and disease-state information that you have to learn. Being field-based certainly has its rewards. You can be the master of your own small business. You're working independently as part of a virtual team, and you know that there are other colleagues in the field with you that have different and complementary responsibilities, such as clinical research associates, account executives and, of course, the medical science liaison or MSL.

Where have they come from?

These days, nearly all MSLs have doctoral-level scientific degrees and direct clinical experience before joining the industry. Although the term MSL can vary in title from company to company, their general mission remains the same – they work as highly trained professionals (many are considered by their peers to be opinion leaders themselves) who interface between their company and leaders in the healthcare community. MSLs act as educators and field-based medical resources.

MSLs work with the top medical thought leaders in the area that they cover. Those thought leaders are not selected by their deciles or sales potential, but by their pure expertise and leadership in the medical community. The general yardstick that companies often use to judge an MSL team's contributions to the organization and the value of their key-opinion-leader network is most often a ROE or return on education. Some of the thought leaders that MSLs focus on may never write a prescription and may not even see patients! However, these professionals are the ones that are publishing articles in major journals, speaking at key meetings, and driving the latest advancements in medical thinking and clinical pathways.

How can they help?

So what does this all mean to a sales associate? The MSL is not only a medical resource for "external" customers, such as medical thought leaders, investigators and P&T committees, but also a resource to which "internal" colleagues can also turn. The MSLs is a multifaceted job that often entails working across a myriad of internal functional areas.

MSLs may be the only consistent faces of their companies that clinicians may see. They are often the first ones out in the field, frequently 18 months prior to the start of a launch.

They can be involved with a therapeutic agent at nearly any phase of the product or device's lifecycle, and basically work with it from bench to bedside.

MSLs can discuss products, data and compounds in development through a peer-to-peer scientific exchange of information. However, as with any career, there are appropriate rules of engagement, compliance guidelines and no "golden shield."

It is important that MSLs serve in their unique role as field-based medical resources with respect to regulatory requirements, industry guidelines, and their owncompany's corporate standards and operating procedures. They are there to answer questions from healthcare providers. In most companies, MSLs provide:

• Clinical training of sales representatives
• Journal and scientific information reviews
• Clinical/data updates, and share best practices at a company's national meeting or local plan of action meetings (regional POAs)
• Competitive intelligence
• The clinician's viewpoint to the company
• Thought leader support and networking
• Commercial support from a clinical perspective
• Clinical trial and pipeline activities
• Scientific expertise on a new area of exploration for their company, such as evaluating a potential product for acquisition, competitive intelligence or emerging areas
• Educational forums and presentations