Clinical Research and Medical Jobs: Pharmaceutical career path
A variety of medical and scientific specialists at pharma companies perform the numerous studies required to take clinical compounds from the lab bench to the pharmacy shelf. Physicians with director or VP titles head up a pharma company's therapeutic divisions and are responsible for ensuring drug safety and for keeping development programs on track. MDs and sometimes PhDs or PharmDs are responsible for drawing up a particular product's overall clinical development plan, which is a strategic and tactical document that lays out the studies a company intends to perform before it applies for marketing approval. They also write or contribute to clinical trial protocols, the instructions for an investigator describing the objectives, design, and methodology of a clinical trial. Clinical Trials: Once the plans are approved by regulatory authorities, clinical research associates (CRAs) take over the nitty-gritty of working with investigators to conduct clinical trials. Dependin...