Pharmaceutical and Biopharmaceutical Sales: A Career Option?
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Most scientists have an inherent dislike and distrust of anything to do with marketing, advertising and sales. A good friend of mine (another Ph.D.) and I frequently joke about how the “less gifted and talented “students always migrated to careers in business as compared with we scientists. The mere mention of the word “sales” conjures up images of a smiling, glad-handing, salesman trying to sell cars at deceptively high prices. Like it or not, salespeople live or die simply on the amount of product they sell on a quarterly basis. That said, in today’s marketplace, it is easier to find a job in sales as compared with R&D.
Although there are similarities between traditional salespersons and pharmaceutical /biopharmaceutical sales representatives, i.e. they both have to sell as much as they can, the differences between these two types of salespeople are greater than you may think. First, unlike typical salespeople (where “on the fly”, high pressure, canned sales pitches are the norm), a pharmaceutical or biopharmaceutical sales rep must know his/her product(s) ‘backward and forward”. This is absolutely essential when a rep tries to convince a physician to buy his/her company’s product(s) as compared with competing brands. Price is always a consideration but safety and efficacy are much more important than price when selling drugs. Physicians are notoriously price insensitive–they typically treat their patients with drugs that they have experience with and have confidence in regardless of cost. Consequently, a well informed, scientifically-minded sales rep ought to be able to sell more product(s) to physicians as compared with one who is not. Second, “becoming informed” requires an enormous amount of education and training. The sales training offered by biopharmaceutical and pharmaceutical companies to their reps is intense and the competition to secure sales jobs is fierce. In the old days, the ideal sales reps were individuals with business backgrounds who had “some understanding” of scientific concepts. In stark contrast, today’s reps are typically undergraduate or graduate science
majors with some understanding of business principles and practices. Finally, as you all know, the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries are both highly regulated. Therefore, it is imperative that all sales reps are trained and have a firm understanding of regulatory practices that guide drug development, manufacturing and sales in the US and elsewhere. This need is underscored by the ongoing, vigorous scrutiny that biopharmaceutical and pharmaceutical sales and marketing practices are receiving from the U.S. Office of the Inspector General (OIG).
I think it may be time for some of you who cannot find jobs in R &D to consider careers in advertising, marketing or sales. To that end, if you are an outgoing, gregarious individual who likes to talk science and is intrigued by business, I highly recommend that you consider a career in advertising, sales or marketing. A quick perusal of the backgrounds of pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical executives will reveal that most of them came up through sales and marketing and not research and development.
Until next time….Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!!
