Careers outside academia: From experimental scientist to medical science liaison in the pharmaceutical industry - InSu Cho's story
Careers outside academia
Graduate students, early career researchers, or even established researchers may sometimes be unaware of opportunities other than the traditional path of academic research. This series aims to introduce them to exciting and rewarding careers that can be pursued outside academia. We bring you interviews with experts from diverse backgrounds who share their experiences from their non-academic journeys and tips on how to transition to these paths.
After a decade of pipettes, lab coats, and labs, InSu Cho, Ph.D., switched his career path from that of an experimental scientist to that of a medical science liaison (MSL) in the medical department of a pharmaceutical company. He currently serves as a Medical Lead for Rare Diseases and Neurological Diseases in Specialty Care at Sanofi, a global pharmaceutical company. He has written a series of articles in Korean for Biological Research Information Center—a scientific community for researchers—on the life of a Ph.D. student, and blogs about career pivots and career tips for the bio/pharma/healthcare industry.
The interview responses were originally provided in Korean and have been translated into English.
Dr. Cho, it’s a pleasure to chat with you! Medical science liaison is a role that many people are still unfamiliar with, so I’m looking forward to interviewing you.
First, can you tell us a little bit about your academic and non-academic journey up to this point and your career outside of academia? I’m interested in knowing what inspired you to change careers.
After completing my Ph.D. course, I started my career as a medical science liaison (MSL) at a multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company in Korea, worked my way up through the clinical departments at various companies, and am currently the Medical Lead of a team specializing in rare diseases and neurological diseases in Specialty Care at Sanofi.
A medical science liaison is a member of the medical affairs team of a pharmaceutical company and performs a variety of tasks, which includes planning and running clinical trials for the introduction and successful market launch of new therapeutics, collaborating with leading researchers and clinicians, identifying issues in the clinical field for unmet medical needs, and providing medical and scientific advice on corporate strategic decisions.
In my bachelor’s course, I majored in biotechnology, and in graduate school, I conducted research focusing on cell/gene therapy development for diabetes and neurological diseases. After about 9 years of laboratory research experience, including post-doctoral work, I switched my career track, and in July 2023, I will have 9 years of experience in the medical affairs team of a pharmaceutical company, which is equivalent to 9 years of experience as an experimental researcher. Now I’m a researcher who doesn’t hold a pipette.
After having completed my Ph.D., published several papers, and conducted post-doc research, I remember wondering what else I could do for the next 10 years based on my long lab life, and how I could grow in different ways. I explored options beyond academia and asked myself if I wanted to continue working in a wet lab, whether in academia or industry.
During my postdoc period, I found myself looking back at my post-Ph.D. work and thinking about what I could tangibly show in terms of personal “growth.” Papers, lab notes, more figures and tables than last year, and raw data that I was hoping would be utilized at some point. Did these indicate growth? For me, these may have been accomplishments (albeit modest ones), but they didn’t feel like growth anymore, because “accomplishments” are not equivalent to “growth.”
Each year, I found myself getting better at my experiments and doing more of them, but the nature of my work didn’t change much, and the accumulation of research experience no longer felt like an “accomplishment.” The world outside of school, the lab, and the dynamics of the biopharma industry were too diverse for me to keep digging deeper and deeper into a single field. I realize that everyone is different, but spending the rest of my life pursuing the same direction was not for me.
For a few years, I felt that while toiling away and hanging in there was what made my degree worth it—and this was talked about like a virtue—I was going to be swept along this path for the next 10 years if I didn’t do something about it now. At a junction like this, if you don’t decide and choose where you want to go, you’re just going to be swept along on the same path. So, I decided that I wanted to move away from being an experimental researcher and take on a more expansive role. Nowadays, it’s called career pivoting, and I didn’t know that phrase, but I started exploring different career paths in order to make a career pivot that would allow me to utilize the experience and skills I had gained over the years, but to do my part in a completely different field.
You made a radical decision to pivot into a new career, and I’m sure it wasn’t an easy one. What were some of the challenges you faced, and what were some of the things that helped you along the way?
I didn’t set out to pivot and become an MSL. At the time, there was very limited information about MSLs. This role was more well-established overseas, but in Korea, medical teams are usually staffed by doctors or pharmacists, and it was rare to see a Ph.D. being hired in this position.
When I decided to leave the lab, I thought, “Now that I’m not doing experiments, what can I do?” For almost a year, I collected information on various careers, cold-called people who were actually working in the field (introduced myself, shared my background and questions, and asked for job descriptions and possibilities), went to job firms (headhunters), maximized my interview opportunities, and actively studied and prepared. Nowadays, I think there is a lot of information about the non-academic fields that Ph.D.s can get into, and a lot of examples have accumulated, so it’s not hard to identify and prepare for a job, but that wasn’t the case 10 years ago, so meeting people who actually work in the field was the best way to get practical information and a big help for me.
I had two guiding questions: What work could I do that did not involve conducting experiments?
How could I leverage my expertise (not necessarily my major, but something based on the broad field of biology and on the technical experience I had)?
The deep analytical thinking skills and experience in managing organized work (experiments, studies, projects, etc.) that I developed in my Ph.D. program would be a differentiating asset in the field.
I chose these two questions because while I sought a completely different career, this was not because I was giving up on my academic career, which was going well, but because I wanted to explore new ways to build on my expertise and use my skills. This is essentially identifying and scaling up what are called “transferable skills,” and I met a lot of people with these transferable skills who were at the forefront of work outside academia.
Some of the people who were willing to give me advice when I didn’t even know them later moved to the company where I was working, and I met them again as my manager by chance. Another person I interacted with is still doing a great job in the venture capitalist industry. The fields where I was given the opportunity to interview for jobs were really diverse, such as venture capital screening, science journalism, research planning for domestic companies, local recruitment for global laboratory-equipment companies, global business development teams for domestic companies, and medical science liaison in medical affairs for global pharmaceutical companies in Korea.
I received offers from three of these fields at the same time. I was fascinated by the vision of my current mentor, whom I met through a cold call, and eventually started my non-academic career as a Medical Science Liaison.
I love the mention of transferable skills outside of academia. How can master’s and doctoral students and researchers in academia get the opportunity to explore these roles or gain a better understanding of what these involve?
In recent times, organizations that offer such roles (medical affairs) have grown in size dramatically, and there is even an active society for MSLs in Korea (KSPM, Korea Society of Pharmaceutical Medicine). First, it is worth noting the global trend of medical affairs. In 2014, MSLs were ranked among the most promising occupations in Korea, along with regulatory affairs specialists, in a study analyzing major health industry occupations and selecting promising occupations. In 2019, McKinsey & Company, a global consulting firm produced a report titled A Vision for Medical Affairs in 2025, which predicted that that medical affairs would grow to become the third strategic pillar organization in pharmaceutical companies, along with R&D and commercial (sales and marketing) departments.
MSLs around the world, and even the MSL Society, which has a large membership of people working in medical affairs at pharmaceutical companies, provide a wealth of information and education to help you understand the role of an MSL. In 2018, Cheeky Scientist, a Ph.D. career platform, ranked MSL second in the top 5 careers for biology majors, and in 2015, Nature published a detailed article on MSL career plans, preparation, and job satisfaction for Ph.D.s, highlighting the future prospects for biology graduates who enter the MSL field.
In addition, MSLs are part of the medical organizations of most global pharmaceutical companies, and medical organizations are independent organizations that are as large as R&D organizations. Therefore, there are many opportunities to enter this field worldwide.
Thank you for listing all these different directions. Lastly, based on your experience, what would you say are some of the most important things for a master’s/Ph.D. student or a researcher at any career stage to consider when exploring careers outside of academia?
When exploring different non-academic career paths, it’s important to have a detailed understanding of your strengths and professional competencies, and be able to articulate how they can contribute to the field or organization you hope to be part of. I’d also like to point out that your expertise or competencies don’t just lie in the area of research you conducted during your Ph.D.
An interesting 2017 paper on careers after Ph.D. presented an evidence-based evaluation of transferable skills and job satisfaction for science Ph.D.s. Transferable skills are, simply put, skills that can be applied in a variety of fields or contexts, and it is important to hone these skills during your Ph.D. program so that they can be transferred to non-research careers as well as R&D careers. It is also a prerequisite for the aforementioned career pivoting.
The paper is particularly relevant to life science majors, as Ph.D.s from these disciplines formed the largest proportion of participants in the survey (61%). The paper surveyed 8,099 Ph.D. holders pursuing research and non-research careers and analyzed in great detail which transferable skills they developed during their degrees, how important each skill is in academia and industry, and how they differ from each other.
To life science majors (at the M.Sc. or Ph.D. level) who are considering a non-research career, I would advise thinking about the transferable skills they’ve developed, whether they’re leaving academia voluntarily or not. Make sure you’re building on the different experiences and knowledge you’ve gained over the course of your degree and that you’re not just looking for an escape since a career outside of academia may not be for everyone.
Here’s a list of some transferable skills you typically gain during your course:
- Discipline-specific knowledge
- Ability to integrate, gather, and interpret information
- Ability to analyze data
- Oral and written communication skills
- Ability to make decisions and solve problems
- Ability to learn quickly
- Ability to manage a project
- Creativity/innovative thinking
- Ability to set a vision and goals
- Time management
- Ability to work on a team
- Ability to work with people outside the organization
- Ability to manage others
- Career planning and awareness skills
Specifically for MSLs, you can refer to The Top 10 MSL & MSL Manager Competencies, a 2017 study by PM360, a consulting firm in the healthcare industry (n = 211, 35 countries). This study found that academic expertise topped the list of competencies required for MSL jobs, followed by the ability to communicate with key researchers, identify unmet medical needs, provide insights, form partnerships, tell scientific stories, and have a business mindset.
While the number one competency for becoming an MSL is expertise in the field, I would like to emphasize that expertise does not necessarily equate with a specific degree; you could be a postgraduate or a Ph.D., a pharmacist or a medical doctor. As a bio-MSL, it would be nice to have a degree in the field of study that you will be working in, but in the real world, it is usually not necessary, and it does not matter which degree you have as long as you are a quick learner and have the ability to synthesize and follow the literature in your area of focus.
Finally, I don’t recommend getting a Ph.D. just to become an MSL; MSL is just one of the positions you can choose after getting a Ph.D. To elaborate, it’s okay for a fresh undergrad biology major to start a multi-year master’s and Ph.D. course with the sole intention of becoming an MSL, but I would advise against it.
What does a Ph.D. mean? A lot of people say that it means “becoming an independent researcher.” I think that’s a very narrow answer because very few people stay in academia and become independent researchers. Instead, I would define the true meaning of a Ph.D. as a foundation that allows scalability in terms of career growth. Therefore, it is advisable to start a Ph.D. program with the vision of having a wide range of possibilities open and to develop your strengths, to experiment and research effectively, and to acquire transferable skills, so that by the time you successfully complete your degree, you have the “skills” to consider MSL as a career option.
Before you ask yourself, “Do I need a degree to become an MSL or have an alternative career outside academia?,” you should have a clear reason why you want to choose such a path (not as an escape or an experiment). If you are clear about what you want to get out of it, you will be able to drive your career, grow, and survive in a meaningful role in the ecosystem, and you can also be a good leader and grow your team. So, I would suggest that you be willing to accept the long training period of a Ph.D., hone both your academic expertise and transferable skills, and ask yourself how you can demonstrate your value and capabilities to the organization in the future.
Additional notes
In 2019, ARX Research, a consulting firm specializing in healthcare, surveyed the educational backgrounds of MSLs in the United States (USA) working in medical affairs, and found that 21.22% had an M.D.; 27.15%, a Ph.D.; 20.65%, a Pharm.D.; and 14.72%, a master’s degree.
In 2020, the Journal of MSL, published by the Global MSL Society, conducted a large-scale survey of MSLs worldwide, excluding the USA. This survey was called Who Are Medical Science Liaisons? and found that 41% were Ph.D.s; 27%, pharmacists (Pharm.D.), and 8%, physicians (M.D./MBSS).
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