Hey, guys. Welcome to the podcast. My guests today are Jessica Johnson and Whitney Theiss of Neurocrine Biosciences. And we talk about the path from clinical practice to field medical. So awesome. Really good information. Don't forget to follow us on YouTube and Instagram. Hope you guys like this. Welcome to MSL talk with Tom Caravella, a podcast specifically designed for MSLs and all things field medical. Hey, guys. Thanks for joining me. Welcome to the podcast.
I'm so excited to have you guys here. How are you doing today? Good. Awesome. Could be a little warmer in Florida, but it's okay. Well, so we headed this way. We have a bit of, we have we have contrasting, like, time zones and and, like, weather because, Jess, you're in Florida where it's gonna it's beautiful. And, Whitney, you're in Denver where you're supposed to be getting, like, 5 feet of snow? That's right. That's right. Good ski weather.
Well, for anyone listening, you have to actually tune into the YouTube version of this podcast because Whitney has ski earrings. They're actually skis, like, literally skier. That's right. That's right. I, again, am a little bit superstitious, and I feel like wearing these earrings might channel the powder gods. So Yeah. So check it out. Yeah. So, guys, welcome. Thanks for joining me. Let's start with some introductions. Jess, why don't you go first?
Okay. Hi. Jessica Johnson, and I reside in Florida. I work for Neurocrine as the director of our clinical practice liaison team. I've been at Neurocrine now for 5 years. Just celebrated the big 5 anniversary, and have the plaque to prove it. And with that, I, by background, am a nurse practitioner and spent, a number of years, about 13 years in clinical practice here in Florida, and then decided to take a new adventure in pharma.
And I've been in, medical affairs for probably going on the 14th year now. Awesome. That's great. And, Whitney, what about you? Great. Yeah. I am a, neurology nurse practitioner by training. I was a nurse practitioner for about 5 years, sub specialized in headache and movement disorders. Prior to becoming a nurse practitioner, I was a nurse, in in the hospital setting. And I joined the company Neurocrine about a year ago on, Jessica's team as a clinical practice liaison or CPL.
Awesome. And I'm looking forward to talking about this CPL, you know, clinical practice liaison and clinical practice transition to field medical. I think it's an awesome topic. And thank you guys. Jess, thanks for coming up with this. This was your idea and we, I've known Jess for a long time and we've got kinda reconnected through the podcast. Right? Yes. If I had not seen one of your podcast, I would not have reconnected after about 5 years.
And I will say, Tom, I love all of the podcasts and I have been routinely referring my team to the podcast. A few of them on my a few, CPLs on my team have not had industry experience. So you can come into this role without industry experience straight from the clinic just like Whitney, has. And I think these podcasts are really good even if it's information that they already are aware of just as a refresher. So, thank you for for doing them and and getting us reconnected. Awesome.
Well, that makes me feel good. I'm glad. And, you know, you bring up a good point. So when one of the things that people always ask me is they love to hear, stories about how people transition into industry. So maybe we'll start there. So, Whitney, why don't you tell us how you went from a clinician into industry? Yeah. So, you know, I was lucky enough in in in my practice setting to have an MSL who who served as my mentor. And, you know, she was also a nurse practitioner in her previous life.
So, you know, because she really kind of taught me the ins and outs of of the role. But, you know, for me, I think really the appeal of becoming an MSL was to really broaden my scope and and have that potential to impact more patient lives. So, you know, and and I was really happy with my life as a clinician, but, you know, I I I wanted something bigger.
So, you know, for those who are listening and and, you know, maybe feel can can feel that sentiment, you know, I encourage you to brush up the old resume, you know, get that LinkedIn profile looking good or or maybe even open up a LinkedIn account because, you know, you never know. I I was approached on LinkedIn, by a headhunter and and for this position. So, again, I'm I'm really grateful for for the transition. And what was your experience, Jess?
How did how did you go from clinician to industry? So I came into industry a a little bit by accident. I had a actually an old nurse practitioner student who encouraged me to look at the role, because he knew I was trying to finish a dissertation, which I was struggling to do. And I was okay and some you know, pretty happy in my clinical life. But I was actually looking for something more, and I I wanted to continue to serve patients.
I just wanted to continue to be working with health care providers. And, again, just struggling to finish the PhD and and looking for what maybe more I could be doing after 13 years. I had I had worked in several different practice settings. So I've done academia where I've had residents that are in med students that I taught, in clinic. And I've also done private practice and I've worked for specialists. So I was ready.
I felt like I had run the gamut and was ready for just a big challenge, a new challenge. And I I love the fact that in this role, you're learning something every day. So when you're a nurse practitioner, I think if people often ask me, what is the one thing that you miss the most about being a nurse practitioner? And I tell them being an expert at something. Because I feel like as an NP, I was an expert in my clinical area.
But in in this role, even after so many years, even after a decade, I feel like I know a lot about it, a lot of different, buckets of things. And I'm able to do many, different, jobs and and roles within the company. But I don't I don't know that I feel like an expert like I did as a clinician. So I I guess that's something I can aspire to. You're an expert. What are you talking about?
You know, it's interesting in my world, on my side of the equation as a recruiter, we're getting a lot of requests from field medical leaders for clinicians, you know, nurse practitioners, physician's assistants, advanced practice nurses. So why do clinicians why are clinicians good candidates for field medical positions? I can take that question. You know? And I think the very core of being an MSL is is to bring this high level data to providers, within your therapeutic area, your product.
And, you know, there can be a disconnect. You know? As a clinician, you know, most of clinicians don't practice in an academic setting. So and even if they do, they're patient facing. So so they don't really, you know, have that background in clinical trials. So, you know, when that someone from medical affairs comes to talk about the data, there can be that disconnect. You know, how is this meaningful for me?
But I think, you know, as as clinicians, we possess that ability to really bridge that gap and to make that high level data clinically meaningful for the providers that we meet with, you know, so that ultimately they can use it in a way that, you know, is meaningful for them and and can help their patients. Got you. Jess, anything to add? I just think having the beds I mean, we say bedside, but it's not necessarily bedside anymore.
I just think having that patient touch factor and also even working with care givers or care partners is what we now refer to, caregivers as.
I think having that ability to have empathy and understanding of where the patient journey has it has been really an something that we've seen as a big impact, not only for our external stakeholders, so our our, what we would call our KOLs, but also, with our internal stakeholders, we are often asked here at Neurocrine by our commercial and marketing partners, can I get a clinician's perspective? And they will call on my team.
You know, we have medical directors, and, obviously, we work really closely with our medical directors, and they and they approach my team as well as credible, currently practicing, or very recently practicing NPs and PAs. So that's that's the beauty I I would say. And you so you guys this is your title is a clinical practice liaison. So if you can give me a definition of what a clinical practice liaison is and, like, and how did that come to fruition?
And how is it, I guess, and how does it differ from a medical science liaison? I don't know if I just asked you 3 questions or one, but I'm curious. We'll get it. Do you want me to do it with me? Or Yeah. You can go ahead and start because it is your team. So, you know, we we played around with the idea of what we were gonna call this position here at Neurocrine when I, was granted the the opportunity to start the team.
Maybe it helps to give a little bit of background as to how the position evolved here at Neurocrine. So in at Neurocrine, I started as a field senior MSL, returned to the field. I had been at man in management at my previous, company. And I really loved being back in the field, and it was it was refreshing to have my own territory and kinda manage myself and just go day to day, see the health care providers.
And I quickly identified because I'm currently working in the psychiatry space that the advanced practice providers were really key to, getting getting the information to and also making sure that, that that they had the information to share with patients about our products and our disease states. And so I leveraged my relationships as well as my networking skills and my past life, as an NP to really tackle the advanced practice space along with my physician KOLs.
And I started to develop, relationships with professional organizations, some of the advocacy groups, and then, more broadly, some of the academic, NPPA groups and and programs like at universities. So I I I really just highlighted for the company that, if we weren't focusing on the advanced practice audience that we were really missing, the mark. Especially with the number of advanced practice providers that are practicing today in the US, we have over 450,000 NPs and PAs currently practicing.
And that number, you know, looking at some of the bureau actually, right from the bureau of of stats labor stats, we're gonna see those numbers significantly increase by the end of the decade. So we know that in by, the end of this decade, we're gonna have, the the nurse practitioner and PA role will be one is one of the top 10, roles out there as far as jobs.
So, in in a sense, like I said, if we don't get to the nurse practitioners who are really in the trenches and the PAs really in the trenches, especially in our psychiatry, therapeutic area, I I just thought that we were gonna have a huge miss. Yeah. So with that, the you know, I I was fortunate enough to have work in a company that was allowed innovation, and it was brought to my attention that maybe we should start, you know, let let's start it.
So I championed for it, and and we started with a very small team of 2 clinical practice liaisons and myself covering the entire country. And then very rapidly within 2 years, I was able to expand the team to a total of 8 plus Wow. Awesome. That is such a great story because a lot of times, you know, you organizations might not be that receptive to this paradigm shift. So you create this clinical practice liaison role, actually the whole team. So what are the responsibilities?
Maybe, Whitney, this is a good question for you. What are the responsibilities of a CPL? Yeah. You know, and I think for myself personally, you know, this was more of sort of a subjective, you know, responsibilities. You you go from being a clinician where you, you know, you have this very objective schedule. You see 8 patients per, you know, half day, 16 patients per day, and now you're in this role where, you know, maybe isn't it isn't that clear.
But I think, you know, our team has sort of developed these 3 pillars, you know, that we sort of, live by, if you will, and I'll I'll kind of go into them. So the first is is education. You know? And and our role is to bring the most current data to our providers in a way that's clinically meaningful, and I touched upon that before. Number 2 is research. And again, I think this is something that's really important and something that we are always, you know, striving to improve.
Typically, you think of physicians, you know, as as being the lead investigators. Right? So really what we are working to change is is that, you know, the advanced practice providers will be, investigators and, you know, will be, part of research. So again, we have a lot of, protocols that are led by APPs, sponsored by the company, and then, you know, investigator initiated. And then the third pillar is is practice. Okay?
And, again, I touched upon that before, bringing that that data in a way that's that's meaningful, you know, and then, of course, educating about disease state, in our therapeutic areas and products. So is it safe to say that a CPL differs from an MSL in, really who they call on more so than anything else? Is that one of the main Yeah. I I would say, you know, typically in the MSL role, you know, the MSLs are calling on on physicians, at academic centers.
And, you know, for us, our KOL key opinion leader is is the advanced practice provider. But, you know, we sort of try to broaden that definition of a of a key opinion leader. And maybe that advanced practice provider provider, is in a rural setting, and might, you know, have a huge influence in education and have a lot of students coming in through clinical rotation.
So we're always, you know, continuing to identify those local, regional, national advanced practice provider and and and even, you know, nursing, KOLs who are nurses Mhmm. You know, who might just have influence, you know, in an area that that's a little bit different than that traditional physician key opinion leader, maybe, you know, at an academic setting. Yep. So, Whitney, you were a clinician that came right into this role.
Jess, you were a clinician that became an MSL that went into this role. So what would you say the differences are between from what you were doing as an MSL and what your team does now? So I'll just echo what Whitney, said. You know, when we describe this role, again, it is a novel role in the industry at present, and I I feel like we're very forward thinking as a company. I describe the role as there are 2 main differences between the clinical practice liaison and the traditional MSL.
And the first one being that everyone on my team has been an active clinician at some point and may even practice very a very small amount to keep up credentials still currently. So maybe that's 8 hours a month, whatever their, state licensure and certification requirements are. And then secondly, it is the audience. So, sure, if there is a physician in the audience or a pharmacist or a researcher, we absolutely can speak to those, individuals.
Mhmm. But really our primary proactive approach is to to be identifying advanced practice providers and nurses and and support staff. So when you think about for us, we are currently in the psychiatry and neurology space. So in psychiatry, there are case managers, there are social workers, there are therapists. So even for, in that particular space, you know, it could be even more broad. I think It makes sense. Yeah. It makes complete sense.
And I think when you look at the whole interdisciplinary, the continuum of care, let's call it, and all of the providers of care, it makes sense to focus on on everyone if, you know, if the company has the bandwidth. So when you look at hiring, let's just say, what skills are you looking for the same skills in a CPL that you would look for in an MSL or are there any differences? So I would say for the most part, because I've also been an MSL manager.
So I spent over 5 years as a medical science liaison manager in my former company. Mhmm. And I did a lot of a lot of recruiting and hiring. And just like I've done here, I wouldn't say there's a cookie cutter, you know, profile that I'm necessarily looking for. I love to have diversity on my team where we can all leverage each other's skills and leverage each other's strengths.
So I think that the things that I would look for, whether it be an MSL or a CPL as a hiring manager, are a lot of the, I would say, soft skills. So I can we can teach scientific acumen. We can we can help people understand data and and clinical trials, and and you can memorize things.
The things that I can't really teach or train on, even though we do say we're gonna have some soft skills training, are the are the intrinsic characteristics like self starter, self motivated, responsive, and maybe, you know, the 2 c's. Communication is very important. So whether and I don't mean just verbal communication, also written communication, being able to communicate across, different, departments at our company.
So we have to be able to change that message and to flex, with our audience, whether we're talking to a case manager or a physician or a nurse practitioner. So flexibility and communication and also, collaboration. So, you know, as I said, we're communicating across different departments in our company, but we also are collaborating and and trying to, make sure that we look seamless in the field and that we're all one company.
So we have to be collaborative with our respective MSL colleagues, and we have to be collaborative with our sales colleagues and in a compliant manner. And I think, you know, the 2 c's communication, collaboration, being responsive, you know, making sure that you, address things in a timely manner. And then at the end, kind of like in nursing, knowing when to ask for help. Knowing when you've gotten in too far over your head and you don't know if what you're doing is right or wrong.
So, you know, being okay with picking up the phone and calling someone who's more experienced. Yeah. So as you're as you're going through this, I'm thinking there's training needs, obviously. So how does your company handle training? Is it you guys get the same training MSLs do? Is it separate? Is is how is that handled internally? I'm just curious because obviously, as I'm hearing you talk about these requirements and skills, I would think that there's gotta be some training needs.
So Whitney, I believe, onboarded at the same time as one of our new medical liaisons and who was a not who is novice to the was novice to the role as well. And they both went through exactly the same Interesting. 12 week rigor of the onboarding home study, you know, the the that that type of, laid out plan. And then the shadowing, and of course that's been difficult with the pandemic, but shadowing other tenured field, medical affairs colleagues.
So whether it be a tenured CPL or a tenured MSL, I think, that they benefit from seeing both of those opportunities. Yeah. And, Jessica, you alluded to this before. I mean, you know, you're you're always learning and evolving on the job. You know? I, you know, I certainly had my orientation onboarding process, but, you know, I've I've really, had to be pro proactive about learning. And, you know, when I shadow, you know, I I I feel like I make an effort to actively contribute, to discussion.
And and if I'm shadowing, you know, an MSL counterpart, and and we have our MSLs, I really find that the marriage or collaboration of, you know, our past experiences minus clinician and maybe the MSLs as someone who's got a pharmacy or bench scientist background really makes for a beautiful, unique presentation scientific discussion with our providers. Got you. So you're so Whitney, you're out there now and you're doing this. What, like, what are your what challenges are you facing?
What are your biggest challenges as a CPL? I think for me, personally, you know, learning the compliance side of everything, regulatory rules. Tom, you had a podcast on that, and we listened to it as a team, and it was really, really helpful. But, you know, I I I think that's a huge piece of transitioning to industry. Your your intentions are very good. You know? I meet with a provider. I wanna send them an article.
My intentions are good, but, you know, I can't necessarily send them that article because, you know, there's just rules about that being seen as a transfer of value. So, you know, just navigating that. But but just like Jess said, asking questions. I think also partnering compliantly with with our commercial colleagues, you know, in in supporting of of their training and then responding to their requests that they're hearing from providers.
Mhmm. And then lastly, you know, again, I I I talked about it before, sort of how this job is very a little bit more subjective than than objective, you know, in terms of the day to day. So instead of, you know, seeing 8 patients in the morning, 8 patients in the afternoon, every day is a little bit different. You're always, you know, seeking to define that. Yeah. So that leads me to so you're out there. You're doing this. You have a team. Jess, you have a team now.
So how are these guys evaluated? Like, what what would you say just makes a top performing CPL? So the age old question. We're still trying to answer that with MSLs. So we don't in our company, we don't have a lot of hard metrics. You know, the bread and butter for MSL ing or CPL ing is bringing insights back to the company. So the actionable insights are what we focus on.
Collaboration where we may have the opportunity to introduce our marketing leadership to important advanced practice KOLs in the, out in the the, space. I think making sure that, you know, you don't get insights unless you talk to people. And it and that's that's where the difficulty be comes with, metrics. So we say we don't have metrics, but we ask you to bring back actionable insights. So you've gotta talk to people to get actionable insights.
So you've got to go out and and meet with people and sometimes you don't come back with an actionable insight or even any insight to so every visit is not is not gonna equal an insight or even 4 insights. So insights are important, bringing back that voice of customer, being able to have, again, compliant, collaborative relationships, with your sales and marketing counterparts.
So that's something where, you know, we answer on unsolicited medical information requests and making sure that those are taken care of. I mean, that is something that you can definitely measure if somebody has, you know, done what they're supposed to do in the appropriate amount of time. Making sure that we, are responsive when there are deadlines. So make like, if we have a speaker training coming up or maybe we have an ad board coming up and we've asked for input.
So our our team, if you know your if you know your geography, you know who the people are that we would probably want to invite and and, extend, invitation to for some type of committee or ad board. So having those relationships and being able to, leverage that and bring them in to provide value for the company. Obviously, we can't measure on any types of research proposals or publications or posters.
But, you know, working with people to facilitate those when they're when they have an interest is also something that, you know, we look at as far as objectives Yeah. Performance. So I'll be talking more of a qualitative sort of thing. Very similar to the MSL. Yeah. So what's next? What you're, you know, so you're in a CPL role. You're a clinical practice liaison. What other career options are there?
You know, can you is it you go from a CPL to an MSL or a CPL to a medical director or like, what what can people aspire to, from this place, from this CPL role? So similar to the MSL role, in fact, just last year, I was able to since it was a new role, it's hard just to, come in and and have HR agree that you're gonna have 2 different levels when you've never had the role before.
So I was able to write the job description and get approval for the senior level, similarly to our MSL's positions here at Neurocrine. We have the, MSL level and then the senior MSL. So we now have two levels for our CPL, team. With that, you know, I think that the opportunities depending on if you are able to transition into a home office role, it the the opportunities are similar to being an MSL. So some of the members of my team are doctorally prepared.
There are others on the team that are working on that. So, you know, we look we all always, think that, you know, you have to have a doctorate. You don't have to have a doctorate for this position. Is it is it something that, in, you know, in the future might be beneficial for, say, transitioning to an in house role? I think we're starting to see an industry, especially with the pandemic, that not everyone has to work and live in the, home office location.
So we're seeing more, positions like associate medical director, medical director, and those are not necessarily physicians, and they're not necessarily home office based.
So I would think that, as time evolves and we, of course, come out of the pandemic and we've seen for past year that people can work productive in a productive way and work remotely and be still be extremely effective, that there will be more opportunities in house, but for, people who don't wanna relocate and want us to remain deal based, that they can do that. Got you. Got you. So, Whitney, what advice do you have? Two part question.
What advice do you have for somebody that's a clinician that wants to try to get into this role? And then you get into this role, what's your advice that you have for them in how they can be successful? Sure. Yeah. So the first part of your question, you know, those looking to get into industry, and I'll, you know, emphasize it again, just, you know, go update your resume. Have someone look at it. Open up that linked account. Put a profile picture up. Listen to this podcast.
I think, you know, Tom, this is such a great resource, you know, to hear others' experiences, to learn about the role. And then the second part of the question, you know, advice that I have for others, you know, in this role, so so anyone working in medical affairs. We've talked a lot, you know, in the past year about this idea of emotional intelligence. Mhmm. And, you know, bringing making that you know, that's an abstract statement.
I think making it meaningful is emotional intelligence is is so important for this job. And I think don't undervalue your experience as a clinician. You have that emotional intelligence. You have that ability to listen, you know, and I think it just really sets you up well for this role. Just to, you know, for a specific example, if I meet with a provider, you know, during their workday and they're running late because they're seeing patients. And I've been there.
You know, you always have that really difficult patient right before lunch or right before the end of the day. So if they're late with meeting us, I completely empathize, and I get that. So that emotional intelligence is really important. I think, you know, again, just to piggyback off of what Jessica said earlier, follow-up, being responsive, you know, is so important in this role. As a clinician, you have your patient in basket, date visits.
And as a provider, I would just you know, if that in basket got full and if I didn't respond, I would start to twitch a little bit. So that sort of carried over to this role in that, you know, I'm really receptive to my email. Or if I get a request for commercial, following up, being responsive is so important. And, again, you've got that because you are already a clinician. So, you know, really, that experience, lends itself to succeeding in this role. Awesome.
Great advice. So, Jess, I'll give you the last word. What advice do you have for our listeners out there? Just be open minded to other opportunities. You know, I didn't know that the medical liaison world existed. And, you know, again, I fell into it by accident almost, but it was because I had a student who saw that I could do more than just see patients day in and day out. So I would say just keep an open mind about your career. Do your own research. There are a lot of paths out there.
Even if you didn't go into, say, an industry role, like this in medical affairs, there are clinical trial roles, you know, that it's not just about seeing patients, and where you can contribute to patients at the end of the day. So, I feel good every day that I have contributed to patients even though I'm not necessarily touching them. Well, you guys are awesome, and I appreciate you taking time. I learned a lot. This was really insightful. I didn't even know that this whole world existed.
I mean, I've heard about it and see different titles, but this was really good information, and I appreciate you guys. I appreciate you coming on. And, we'll have to do this again sometime. Love it. We'll be talking to you soon. We're ready. Thank you, Tom. This was an awesome opportunity. We're really appreciative. Good job guys. Thanks again. We'll keep in touch. All right. Thanks, Tom. Bye, everybody. Bye bye. Thank you so much for listening to the show.
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