Functions in Medical Affairs, Medical Information Enquiries , PowerPoint Requests , Meeting with doctors , In-clinic effectiveness , Questionnaire and Surveys, Training , New Brand Launch, Hierarchy , Work Management

1. How to do job of a
MEDICAL ADVISOR

2. Functions in Medical Affairs

3. Medical Information Enquiries
• Call Medical representative
• When to call doctor regarding subject details of enquiry
• Call doctor regarding subject details of enquiry and the time in which he needs it.
• Check PubMed/Google/Embase for relevant articles.
• Send the articles to Doctor Medical representative

4. PowerPoint Requests
1) Call Medical representative
• When to call doctor regarding subject details of the PowerPoint
2) Call doctor
• Why does he want PowerPoint
• Does he want articles or other PowerPoint
• How much time does he want the PowerPoint in
3) Read abstract of articles and then a good latest review article (in the last 1 year)
• Time to read (60 min) + prepare (30 min) + format (30 min)
4) PowerPoint skills required for formatting
• Time versus quality – Appropriate quality in the available time (time is important)
5) Send to doctor Medical representative the PowerPoint + article

5. Meeting with doctors
• In-clinic
• Seminar
• Round table meetings
• Symposium
• Conference
• Advisory meet

6. In-clinic effectiveness
• Tell the doctor the reason for the visit.
• Ask questions as per the Questionnaire
• Give a latest review article about the drug or his area of interest
• Tell the doctor “if any full text article is required, we will be happy to provide it
for you”
• Thank him for his time
• Never ask him to prescribe the drug
• Do not talk about pricing.
• Continue providing him articles on his area of interest.(avoiding copyright issues)

7. Seminar and Round table meetings
• Speak with marketing and sales regarding the topic, time and place of meeting
• Prepare your PowerPoint slides and deliver it.
• Know public speaking skills
• Know the audience
• Who they are
• What do they do
• Their areas of interest
• Mingle with audience later and ask them questions
• How did they like the lecture
• Any future topics they would like to know more about
• Ask them about their disease frequency in the clinic – prepare a questionnaire
• Thank them for their time
• Follow up the seminar with Sending them articles on drug and their areas of interest.
• Also keep some non medical topics handy to speak with them ( such as sights in the city or
conferences in the country)
• The audience is important as they are the customers.

8. Symposium and Conference
• Speak with marketing and sales regarding the topic, time and place
• Know the speaker and audience
• Interact with Speaker regarding the PowerPoint slides (especially if needs any
articles or making the PowerPoint)
• Prepare a questionnaire regarding disease and drugs
• Mingle with audience and ask them questions
• Follow it up with sending the audience articles on drug and their areas of
interest.
• Prepare a synopsis of the topics covered and questions asked with their replies

9. Advisory Board Meet - 1
1) Plan three months ahead.
2) Speak with marketing, sales, regulatory and clinical research colleagues regarding the topic,
time and place.
3) Know the objective – Inputs regarding clinical studies including trial protocols, promotional
material review, providing answers to medical enquiries, expectations of healthcare
professionals, whether physicians and patients are satisfied with the product and ways to fill in
the gaps and voids, product extensions, manage side effects, or discussing the competition
products.
4) Know the audience
• Who they are – Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), Product supporters/opposers, Highly-published
authors, Famous speakers, or passionate healthcare professionals.
• What do they do
• Their areas of interest
5) Choose a good moderator – can be medical advisor or external consultant
6) Have a personal (virtual) meeting with every participant beforehand and distribute
information to participants before the meeting

10. Advisory Board Meet - 2
7) Clarify expectations with the moderator and board participants.
8) Choose the audio/visual format- Can be different presentation formats, videos, or interactive
workshops.
9) Prepare your PowerPoint slides and deliver it.
10) Prepare a questionnaire regarding disease and drugs, Mingle with audience and ask them
questions
11) Follow it up with obtaining feedback immediately after an advisory board ends, keeping the
members informed on the outcomes of the meeting and sending them articles on drug and
their areas of interest,
12) Prepare a synopsis of the topics covered and questions asked with their replies
13) Convert meeting results into practical company activities

11. Questionnaire and Surveys
• Speak to marketing and sales about the topic
• It can be based on
• Efficacy or safety of drug,
• Comparison of drug with competitor ,
• Patient population for use of the drug
• Frequency of disease
• Check Questionnaire Survey on google or google scholar or pubmed or books.
• Check if it is validated
• You can prepare your own Questionnaire Survey based on it.

12. Drug evaluation requests
• There will be pressure on you from marketing to approve a drug because the competitor is selling
the drug.
• Remember if you approve a drug, you will have to come out with medical literature points for its
promotion.
• So if the drug fails on the point of efficacy and safety, always tell the truth. It is better to stop a
drug in the initial stage than losing money in later stage.
• If pressure from marketing, let boss know and he will escalate
• Medical points only
• Efficacy,
• safety,
• Convenience – dosing, formulation
• Read abstract (especially conclusion ) of articles and then a good latest review article (in the last 1
year)
• Know place and position of drug in treatment of disease (whether 1st or 2nd choice or in which
subpopulation used ) + compare it with competitors (regarding efficacy, safety and convenience)

13. Training
• An Important job is to convert hard medical English to simple conversational English
• Use videos and images in the training slides.
• Explain the disease, then treatment, then the drug and then compare it with competitors.

14. New Brand Launch
• Discuss with regulatory – Indication, dosage, formulation
• Discuss with marketing – Positioning, promotional literature, and strategy
• Discuss with sales – Disease, brand, competitor products, training, medical
queries
• Discuss with KOLs- Disease, patient population, brand, competitor products,
guidelines, promotional literature messages, current gaps in patient care.
• Download recent abstract and full texts of journal articles of brand and
competitor products
• Prepare PowerPoint presentation on
• Disease and its management including guidelines, current gaps in patient care
• Pharmacology of product
• Differences with competitor products
• Training slide set
• Journal articles on brand.
• Subscribe to daily alerts on pubmed and google news regarding brand and
competitor products

15. Communication with marketing
• Types
• Email
• Text
• Verbal (face to face)
• You may have a good rapport with the person and talk face to face– remember to
follow it up with email
• You may not have a good rapport with the person and would prefer to
communicate with only email and text
• You still have to be professional and speak face to face as you may get to know something
you didn’t know before

16. Budget Forecast
• Medical advisor salary, transport, laptops/mobile and stationery
• Access to current medical literature.
• Medical advisor transport, meals and stay during HCP engagement activities or
Employee training days.
• Involvement of third party agencies in various projects
• HCP engagement activities – HCP transport, meals, stay and fee.
• Clinical research activities
• Regulatory and Compliance activities

17. Clinical studies
• Preparing the clinical trial protocol, case report form and other documents
• Collaborating with regulatory team to get the clinical trial registered and
approved.
• Training and collaborating with clinical investigators and their team to recruit
patients and collect data.
• Auditing of investigator sites.
• Statistical analysis, preparing the clinical trial report and its publication.

18. Hierarchy in Medical Affairs

19. Other activities
• Working with regulatory team to provide them information on drug for regulatory approval
• Check Pubmed for relevant articles
• Working with clinical research team to provide them information on clinical trial protocol, case
report form and other documents as well as training. Also preparing clinical trial documents for
phase 4 trials
• Working with Pharmacovigilance team to provide them information on ADR. Also working with
sales and marketing team to get information regarding ADR from doctors.
• Working with compliance team to check whether the Product inputs given to doctors are
compliant with current regulatory standard.

20. Work Management
• Use most of your time for understanding the medical knowledge and reading on it.
• Keep on reading about medical knowledge from books, Google, PubMed, Association guidelines.
That’s what You are getting paid for.
• Do not stress yourself about non medical tasks.
• Work fast, finish on time and enjoy personal life
• Your family needs you more than the company
• The protocols will help you to complete your work faster and not get stressed.
• The protocols are guidelines but speak to boss first about any deviation from protocols
• If you make mistakes that lose money, its difficult to explain it to marketingHR and HR may not
approve of promotion or salary hike.
• Your promotion depends on your work efficacy and skills [medical + soft skills like
computer skills and communication] + professional attitude + years of experience in
the same company ( loyalty so that you can be entrusted with secrets + other people
are comfortable in dealing with you ). Therefore 360 degree feedback matters.

21. Work management
• Your Job is not only to make money but also not to lose money.
• You can make money by providing medical content to marketing which will help their
marketing strategy and promotional literature
• You can help not to lose money by making sure that the promotional literature and
communication strategy to doctors are compliant to legal and regulatory guidelines
• The more medical content you provide to marketing, the less arguments you will have with
them and it will help approving promotional literature easier.
• Marketing may not agree with your ideas or may not use your ideas even if he
agrees with them. This is because he may have money and resource constraints.
• Be prepared to drop your ideas.
• Be polite but professional (do not show your emotions, wear mask, its just acting)
• Remember that any person with whom you interact with can stab you in the back and blame
their mistakes on you
• This happens even if you have a good rapport with as everyone wants to earn money and
keep their job.
• If argument erupts between you and marketing, be patient and stop speaking
• you may say something in the heat of the moment which you may regret later.
• Also the marketing guy may try to entice you to say something which he may use against you
later.

22. Work management
• When Marketing complains they will tell it to your boss
• So don’t think “why didn’t marketing tell me first instead of telling it to boss”.
• This is because they do not want to waste time arguing with you.
• They may also wish to have medical input from a senior person.
• That is how hierarchy in company works.
• Do not think “what use is all the knowledge I learnt in college.”
• In any field you work, You will always be using only 30 % of knowledge you learnt in college.
• You are important to the company only till you are relevant.
• Don’t think “I have given so much to company all these years. I should get back something.”
You are getting back your salary.
• Do not allow your emotions to damage your career.
• You can burn out.
• There may be groupism in the company
• You may have politics in the company
• Immaturity is a headache for supervisors.
• Be emotionally stable. You can always state your case politely.
• Have a good personal life. Take rest, exercise, good diet and have a social life.

23. • You may not be working adequately. You can take time off and go on a holiday. If
you aren’t working adequately for a significant amount of time, you can discuss it
with your supervisor.
• If there is any solution such as training or lesser work load or job in another department, the
company can look into it.
• However if there isn’t any solution, then you can always look for another job.
• That’s ok. It just means the job role is not the best fit for you.
Work management