SEAK faculty member who is an experienced physician in Pharmaceutical Industry answers the question: What does a medical science liaison do?
The medical science liaison role is one that is more outwardly focused. It typically, is dealing with products that are already on the market that have received their FDA approvals or clearances are being utilized by physicians. A medical science liaison will take the information that the company learned during the clinical development and they will share that with physicians, they will develop relationships with key opinion leaders, getting them to understand how new product or treatment can benefit patients and why it might be superior to other treatments that they are currently using.
The medical science liaison works very closely with the sales force in terms of educating potential buyers of the products that a company has developed, in terms of answering their questions on more a clinical academic level while the salesperson deals with the day to day sales processes. So the medical science liaison is working day to day with other doctors as they are educating them and sharing information with them, and also can take ideas back from those physicians to about how a product might be used better; maybe in a different patient population or in a completely different indication. That medical science liaison may help oversee clinical trials that can show that indication works as safely and effectively as it was shown to work in the original trials.