Hey, everyone. Welcome to the podcast. My guest today is Cassie James. She's a medical science liaison at Ashfield. And we talk about how those with pharmacy backgrounds can transition into industry, specifically in the medical science liaison role. Cassie's awesome. I think you guys are gonna really like this. Don't forget to follow us on YouTube and Instagram. And check us out on MSL Talk Live, which is the first Tuesday of every month at 1:30 pm Eastern time. And that's on Clubhouse.
So download the Clubhouse app, check us out, and join the conversation. So and hit me up on LinkedIn too. Thanks, guys. Welcome to MSL Talk with Tom Caravella, a podcast specifically designed for MSLs and all things field medical. Hey, Cassie. Welcome. Thanks for joining me. I'm so excited to talk to you today. Yeah. Thanks for having me. So Cassie and I met. Let's start.
Let's go back because I always like to to give somewhat of the origin, especially, like, recently because we're going to live conferences again. I get to meet so many awesome folks, and that's how I met Cassie. So we met, in Vegas at the MSL Society meeting, which was a lot of fun. Cassie's awesome. Wait till you guys get to hear from her. She is a shining up and coming shining star in this industry. So, Cassie, thank you again for joining me. Why don't you do a quick intro?
Yes. Thanks for having me. I've always been a big fan of your podcast and feel that it's super valuable for anyone aspiring to be an MSL or or currently an MSL. So thanks again. I am a Pharm b by training. I also have a master's in health administration, and I'm currently a medical science liaison. On a personal level, I'm also a mother of 5 and foster child advocate. So super excited to be here. Thank you. Well, we're excited to have you. And this was let me tell you guys.
Sometimes I like to say, like, how this stuff comes about. And, basically, we had a conversation, and I realized just in that conversation, Cash and I were talking, and there's there's so many pharmacists out there that are looking to transition into industry, industry, or looking to become MSLs. And Cassie, with her background, who's really done a great job in transition from pharmacy to industry, but also as a mentor, and she's really involved in the pharmacy community.
Her story's a really good one. So I want to start with your story. And how did you transition, and how did you go from pharmacy to industry? And what can you share with folks just as a start? Yeah. So I'm gonna even rewind a little further. I'm a 20 year career waitress. So prior to obtaining my doctorate in pharmacy, I was a waitress and waitress all the way through 3rd year of pharmacy school. And some of those transferable skills are what helped me to succeed in in my MSL role.
But as most pharmacy students, were really, you know, pushed into the clinical or retail role, I started looking and, you know, seeing what other options were available and very quickly fell in love with industry, specifically, the MSL role, how you can merge, you know, science and communication. And so I went through the whole fellowship interview process, landed a fellowship, and completed the the 1 year MSL marketing fellowship.
And then immediately started my role as an MSL in my current position. Awesome. So how do you like it so far? I love it. Yeah. Dream job. Well, you have the skills. I mean, you have the interpersonal skills. You're super smart. You got the scientific acumen. So I think that when looking at the the skills and the qualifications that someone would need, I think you check all the boxes. So, good luck to you.
Now let's and a lot of times, clients come to us, and they're specifically looking for PharmDs. Like, we get that. So why what would you say what's the reason for that? Why do PharmDs and folks with pharmacy backgrounds make good industry professionals, specifically MSLs? So I think it goes back to the the foundation of the Pharm b training. We have exposure to all of the therapeutic areas and a foundational understanding of all the disease states.
So while we may not have, you know, therapeutic year experience in, say, for instance, cardiology, which was what my fellowship was in, we're quickly able to come up to speed because we already have a foundational understanding, versus someone else who may have a more specialized training. They would be the expert in in that specific area. Got you. Okay. So, obviously, foundation is critical.
But then let's just say someone makes the decision that they wanna transition into industry or they wanna try to take that career path. Like, where would you suggest they start and how do they position themselves? It's not always easy. It's not like, oh, just do this. Like, what what advice do you have for those folks? Right. So, I'll I'll give 2 sets of advice. 1st, for the pharmacy students.
So if you're a pharmacy student, you know, going ahead from, you know, as soon as you realize that you'd like to go into industry, holding leadership positions in school, you know, building good relationships with your professors so that you can attain those letters of recommendations, trying to gain experiences with projects or organizations such as IPHO, really putting yourself out there and networking as you would if you were just obtaining, you know, hoping to obtain an MSL role.
And then when we're specifically talking about someone who's a pharmacist, you know, it's looking at the skills needed to be an MSL and finding opportunities to obtain those transferable skills. I mean, this could be through you know, a speaking engagement at your pharmacy school or, you know, a local community college.
Or it could be through, you know, networking with another MSL and asking about working on a project, you know, trying to understand maybe an MSL specific thing, like, you know, what's the difference between an insight and observation? What value does an MSL bring to the company? So the more research you do, the more networking, the better you are to be positioned into the into that role later. Yeah. That's great.
So what about you you mentioned so, like, just going back and picking out one thing, like, you mentioned, like, the IPHO, and I know that they're, fill they're I I'm very familiar with the organization, and they're associated with their fellowship program and all of the resources that they provide for pharmacists looking to transition into careers, especially in industry. Before we talk too much about the IPHO, did you do a fellowship? Yes. So I I was involved in IPHO.
When you're a fellow, you can hold leadership positions. You know, you can be voted into leadership positions within IPHO. So I was on the National Fellows Council, so that is something I highly recommend. But I did do, you know, 1 year postdoc fellowship and on my own, sought out leadership opportunities through IPHO.
And and there are, like, so many resources in that organization, you know, coaching, career development, and then, of course, educational webinars to kinda give you more information about different functional areas or, you know, how to prep your CV, interview recommendations, things like that. Yeah. Well, how did you I know it's hard to land those. So, like, how did how were you able to get involved, and how did you land your fellowship?
So I didn't realize that I wanted to do a fellowship until later in my pharmacy career, so towards the end of my doctorate. But anything that you would do to prepare for even a residency or to be a leader, there are things that help you to stand out. So I completed a dual degree. So I recommend doing things like just looking and seeing how you can stand out from the other students. That could be the dual degree, you know, holding a leadership role, working on special projects, networking.
Just really trying to make your application stand out because there are so many, pharmacy students applying for these fellowships. And then, of course, you know, resilience, not giving up. Right? Following back up because maybe the person that they originally selected for the fellowship went with the they went with, a different company.
And when they're looking to see, like, well, who's next on the list, you know, if you followed back up and and did your homework and left good impressions, then, they may consider you as as the next candidate. So really trying to work on, you know, being patient, resilience, holding leadership positions, and just not being afraid to hustle. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's the key. We talk about it all the time on this podcast. Like, you have to dictate how things are gonna go.
You have to wake up every day and figure out what are the action items that I'm gonna take today that's gonna get me to my goal, whatever that goal might be, whether it's a fellowship, whether it's landing of your first position in industry, whatever it might be. What are you gonna do every day to take action to do that? Because you can't expect people to come to you.
It's not gonna happen, especially when it comes to the competitiveness of trying to get a fellowship or trying to land a position in industry. So I love the result you know, just that word resilient, I think, says it all. And it makes a big difference. I wanna get back to the IPHO just for a second. The reason I wanna bring it up is I happen to know Jim Alexander. I actually talked to him the other day.
He's the, the founder and CEO of the IPHO, and he shared some really interesting statistics with me, just for anybody that's interested in checking them out. They he gave me, the annual fellowship analysis of kind of the highlights of what the results of their, fellowship program was for last year, but they had a record number of 738 fellows, which was 18% growth from the year prior. They had a record number of 430, 31 1st year fellows, and 92 sponsor companies, which is another record.
So and the graduates were from a 109 different pharmacy schools, and there was a record number of 94 black pharmacist fellows, which is a 52% increase versus last year. Mhmm. But the so interesting stats, and I wanted to share that because it just shows you how fast this organization is growing and what they're able to do. They had 276 PharmDs from class of 2020 class of 2021, obtained direct to industry roles upon graduation. So that's pretty significant.
And then 1 third of those roles with pharma companies, 2 third with serve service provider organizations like CROs and agencies, and then more than a 140 different companies employed these PharmDs, with Medpace employing the most. So wanted to share those stats because Jim knew that you and I were gonna get together, and we were doing this podcast. And I asked him for some statistics. So wanted to share that with you guys. So, think you should check out the IPHO if you haven't already.
Let's get back to you had mentioned we were talking about how to position yourself, and I I think what we need to talk about, which always important is, like, what skills would you recommend people focusing on developing to really prepare them for a role as an MSL or preparing them for any role in industry? Right. So some of the key, I think, most important skills are, you know, emotional intelligence. I mean, there's a certain element to that that cannot be taught, but everybody can improve.
So, you know, taking, classes or researching about emotional intelligence. Practicing communication. So that could be signing up for Toastmasters, you know, different whatever way that you can practice, you know, showing that you're confident. Being a lifelong learner, right, you have to continuously stay up to date with, you know, compliance regulations, as well as everything in the therapeutic area.
So you need to be willing to always be willing to take, like, personal initiative to stay up to date. You know, what what are new publications? What's, you know, the pulse on the therapeutic area? And I think just the back to the resilience. Right? It's not easy to land a fellowship or internship. Obviously, obtaining a professional degree is not easy either. So knowing that it's just you don't just send in your application and then everything's gonna work out.
You really have to put the whole picture together with the networking, the transferable skills, the mentorship, the leadership, continuing to grow, and look at where you have thoughts and and how you can improve this. Yeah. I mean, I I totally agree. I I think and I know I'm gonna be redundant by saying this, but if you want to get into an MSO role, you have to be all in. You gotta dive in. You gotta do everything. You have to literally jump into every aspect of the medical affairs community.
You have to be active in that community. You have to cross every t dot every I. And you really have to get yourself you have to be visible. You have to get yourself out there, you have to to make sure that you're putting yourself into the community, whether it's through networking, LinkedIn, applying for jobs, doing, you know, trying to get the fellowship, or maybe it's a starter position. Maybe your your path to the MSO role is through maybe a CRO.
Maybe you take a position, in industry on the vendor side, like, or the agency side, and that's the way you take a little bit of a side step to take a step forward. But I totally agree with you. I think that that's, I think that's awesome advice. So now let's go back to your story. So we have an understanding of where you come from. We learned that you transition. You have an MSL position. So how's it going?
Like, what have you learned since you've been in MSL that you can share with other people that are trying to get there? So I'd I'd say that the value of an MSL role, it's it's so much bigger, the impact that you make on, you know, your entire organization, the potential impact to patient care, the value you bring to the providers. Like, you hear about how valuable an MSL is, but, you know, it's hard to measure. People always talk about, you know, logistic measurements of the value to MSL.
But when you're in the role and and you can see how maybe, like, you know, initiatives within the company change based on your insights, when you speak to a physician and they're so appreciative because of the value that you've added on keeping them up to date on the latest science. And it you know, that trickles down to then, you know, they may provide better patient care because they have, you know, fair and balanced scientific data on their specific therapeutic area.
So just really having firsthand experience about how important the role is, I think that can help, you know, set a fire under someone to keep pushing through when they've heard, you know, no 50 times. You know, maybe the the 51st time they would be given an opportunity. Yeah. You know, it's it's you're right. I mean, the value of the MSL has never been where it is today.
And what I mean by that is I think that the health care community has really become dependent on what the MSL offers to patient care and to their practice and how important the MSLs are, and really being able to be that conduit and make sure that the message that needs to get out to the healthcare community is actually getting out there. And it's getting out there in the right fashion. The other thing too is it's it's one of the most fastest probably the fastest growing profession in industry.
It's never been a better time to be an MSL. So it's an important role. It's a very valuable role, and it's a growing role. So I think if you're interested, it sounds like a commercial. Sounds like I'm I'm trying to convince people. I don't have to con I know everybody who listens to this podcast doesn't have to be convinced. But I do wanna actually reiterate that.
So and, of course, I have to make sure that there's some form of disclaimer in here by saying that it's not all what it's cracked up to be. I'm sure there's challenges. Right? So you get into the role. What challenges are you facing? What have you learned since you've become an MSL that maybe you didn't expect? So, you know, I started my MSL career during the era of the pandemic.
So as you can imagine, everything in the health care system is, kind of taking a hit, and people's time is restricted more than ever. The having to connect to somebody virtually, there's an added layer of of disconnect there. So I think the greatest challenge is, you know, gaining access to providers and making sure that you're being very intentional with the time that they do have and then finding unique strategies to gain access when it appears that there is no access to that provider.
So it's, you know, both a positive and negative. I think that it's great because now we're forced into thinking of these creative strategies to connect virtually or gain access differently than what happened prior to COVID 19. But still, nothing beats face to face. And so I think that that's kind of one of the the challenges that I've seen.
Yeah. Well and I think that's I think everybody's feeling that, especially it's gotta be especially difficult for someone that's kinda newer in the role, not seeing what it was like prior just kinda coming into this, which is the I hate to say the word new normal. I hate that expression. But this is all I think a lot of any MSL that started in the last 2 years, this is really kind of all they know. How did how did you prepare for that? Did was it part of your training?
Was it just something that you had to figure out on your own? I'm just curious. It was something that I figured out on my own, but back to those transferable skills and the value, you know, through being a waitress and having to juggle, you know, being a mother, a student, you know, an employee. Like, I really learned to adapt. So having that adaptability and not just settling.
So, you know, looking outside of the box and just being super creative, asking for advice from other people that I have within my network and just picking people's brains. So really trying to just, like, build my knowledge base and then use my, you know, creative strategies to think, okay. Well, how else can we we do this? This is how it was done before. And just kind of, you know, doing an analysis. And pretty much, I just saw what worked and continue doing that.
Kinda did self evaluations of things that didn't work and, you know, did less of that and just kinda come up with my own strategy as I went along. Yeah. You had to have had help, though. Like, I I as much I don't know you that long. But from what I know about you, you seem like you're a really good people person, a really good networker. Did you find mentors? Were was networking a big part of your strategy? I have to imagine it was. I I have to say, like, networking is the key.
I know it's said over and over and over. And and it has to be done in a certain way. Right? You have to have done your research, you know, speak your value when you reach out to a mentor. If you reach out to a mentor and you don't even know about the role, that could be taken as insulting or that you're not very serious. So, you know, I did my research and I found a mentor actually from this podcast. I heard someone on the podcast. I was very impressed by them.
And I reached out on LinkedIn, you know, with my request to, you know, to ask them if I could hire them as a mentor. They end up doing it for free. And, you know, just kinda continue that model of when I found somebody that I felt was a leader in industry, reaching out to them and just, you know, letting them know my intention of of why I wanted to have them as a mentor. And, you know, just trying to see, well, can we set up a 5 minute call? And it was it was basically pretty much that.
You found somebody in the MSO community through this podcast, reached out to him on LinkedIn, gave told him exactly what your intention was, and we're very specific in that whole thing. And then it just kinda came together. Yes. And we met regularly, like, weekly for a very extended period of time. And then, you know, eventually, it went to, like, monthly. And now we just do check ins here and there. But the mentorship definitely helped me to improve, MSO role specific skills.
Yeah. That's awesome. I'll tell you. You, you really put it together. You you did. And I I appreciate your I like your style, man. I I I just think that you you put together a really good strategy, and you got after it. And it's so important to navigate your own course. And, I mean, I don't wanna talk we we already talked about that, but I love your story. And I'm glad that we had a chance to tell it. What final advice would you give for people? There's gotta be that one other, oh, yeah.
You know, one more thing. I guess my final advice would be just to, you know, self reflect and think about why you want to be an MSL. And then, you know, use that as your driving force when you're having to go through this huge checkbox of, okay, I need to find a coach. You know, I need to find a mentor. I I have to redo my CV to interest industry specifics. I need to find, you know, role specific skills that are transferable. The list goes on and on.
But if you have done a self evaluation and you really understand, like, why you want to be in this role, that's gonna be the, you know, the fire that that keeps pushing you along and, you know, for you not to give up and continue and and be resilient. And to be a good MSL, that's what you have to do. You have to continue to to try and, network and, you know, see what strategies worked and which don't and not give up. Great advice. Cassie James, you're awesome. Thank you so much for coming on.
This is a lot of fun. I wish you the best. I really do. And we're gonna have to keep in touch, and we'll have to have you come back on one of these days. Thank you so much. Alright. Bye, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to the show. And if you enjoyed it, please subscribe so that you don't miss an episode in the future and feel free to leave a rating or a review or a comment. Thanks again, and we look forward to seeing you soon.