Pharma Sessions
Pharma Sessions
Breaking into Pharma with Emet Anceaume, Director of Field Medical Affairs at Immunovant
In this episode of Pharma Sessions, host Jonathan Kaskey discusses career transitions into the pharmaceutical industry, specifically focusing on roles like Medical Science Liaisons (MSLs). The guest, Emet Anceaume is the Director of Field Medical Affairs at Immunovant.
Emet is a pharmacist by training. She shares her insights on the importance of transferable skills, the challenges and strategies for breaking into pharma, and the distinction between working for big pharma and small biotech companies. Emett shares personal experiences and highlights the significance of persistence, adaptability, and long-term planning for a successful career in the pharmaceutical sector.
00:00 Understanding Job Requirements and Transferable Skills
01:05 Introduction to Pharma Sessions Podcast
02:16 Breaking into Pharma: A Career Path Discussion
04:32 Challenges for Recent Grads in Pharma
06:55 Navigating Career Transitions in Pharma
12:58 Persistence and Planning in Career Development
15:53 Non-Traditional Paths to Pharma Careers
20:36 Big Pharma vs. Small Pharma: What to Expect
24:23 Evaluating Job Requirements and Work-Life Balance
27:00 Exciting Opportunities in Pharma for New Graduates
Pharma Sessions is hosted by Jonathan Kaskey
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It's important to look at the job requirements. And then think about your current position. What are you doing? That could be transferable to the, that role, for instance, communication is in an MSO role. Huge. And as a pharmacist, you have to have great communication skills to be able to communicate very complex scientific medical information to someone that may. Only have an eighth grade education. So you have to be able to synthesize, and I think a lot of folks get caught up with the job description and technicality and don't really start to think about what skills they're using now that could be transferred into that particular role.
Jonathan Kaskey:That is a really interesting mindset where it's, I'm qualified for this role because I can do this role rather than because I have done this role. And if you're thinking about it that way, it a lot more things open up to
Emet Anceaume:Absolutely.
Hello, hello and welcome to Pharma Sessions, the podcast where me affairs comes to learn from each other. I'm your host, Jonathan Caskey.
Jonathan Kaskey:I always like to start just a little bit like, a get to know you type stuff. And I think that one good way to do that is to talk about, our breakfast. It's 11 o'clock now. What have you had to eat so far today?
Emet Anceaume:I had some bacon and eggs. Those eggs, I know they're scarcity right now, but I managed to still have a little supply left.
Jonathan Kaskey:I like that. So you would go a full on breakfast, is that your traditional weekday thing or is this a special occasion or what is
Emet Anceaume:I try to have a heavy breakfast because my days are pretty hectic, so once I, I have a substantial breakfast. I'm, it really, I'm not really hungry throughout the day, so it helps.
Jonathan Kaskey:All right. Because you're about to be out there today and every day full on Ms. L around traveling and who knows where you'll be able to get your next next meal. I like it. I like it. Okay, cool. So the concept that we came up with for this episode it's maybe a little bit different perhaps a bit more career oriented and maybe. F helpful for people that are looking to perhaps break into pharma. But the idea is how does somebody, let's say you're a pharm d actually break into pharma and why would they want to, so maybe to get into that, if you could just quickly share what is your background and what was your career path bringing you to your current
Emet Anceaume:Yeah, absolutely. So I am a pharmacist by trade. I trained mostly in community and clinical pharmacy. I was always interested in. In the pharmaceutical industry had one rotation during my pharmacy career that really gave me the really nice exposure to all the possibilities and all the different options for pharmacists within the pharmaceutical industry. So after that rotation, it really got me thinking about where I saw myself for the next 20 or 30 years. And I think that. The pharmaceutical industry to this day still and was the right choice for me.
Jonathan Kaskey:Yeah. So you were exposed basically to the opportunities during your education. Is this something that everybody that was in your program that received access to, or is this something that you had to search out and find?
Emet Anceaume:Yeah, so unfortunately it's a very non-traditional path. I would say that many pharmacy schools don't even have the partnership set up with the pharmaceutical industries. But my school did, and it was an application process where you had to apply. Give your rationale why you wanted to do a rotation there. And after, I guess the application process, they the school decided who they decided to support. However, not all students were able to do this participate in this endeavor because it was, you had to self-fund yourself, meaning you had to. Make sure you secure, your accommodations because it wasn't covered through the regular tuition.
Jonathan Kaskey:Oh, interesting. Alright, so let's say somebody does, however they do get exposure to this and decide it's something they want to pursue working in the pharma industry, that is what challenges are they up against? Why is it hard for recent grads? Let's say they want to become an MSL to do that right out of school.
Emet Anceaume:Yeah, I think the ex, the work experience is one, right? This is, I wouldn't say necessarily, it's not a role for a recent grad, right? If they have had, for instance, other work experience, however, it does require certain. Skills that one would acquire while working in the industry itself. So I think that there are other roles that can build up the skillset and the I think it's more of an acclimation process to the industry in itself. That is the hardest part for someone to just jump into an MSO role, outta school.
Jonathan Kaskey:Because they might, while they might have these skills, it's, they might need to figure out how to map those to what the position that they're going for is. It might not be a very, a totally clear one-to-one. And in theory, MSLs, I'm actually on the MSL thread on Reddit, and every now and then somebody posts, Hey, is X, Y, Z company a good company to work for? Or, here's the range that I'm looking at. And it's a pretty well compensated position, right? So you'd imagine it's. It's competitive. You'd imagine when somebody's hiring for that they, they might have recent grads, but they also might have some people with 5, 10, 15 years of direct experience, being in MSL in that therapeutic area. So is that, when you say work experience, is that sort of what you're alluding to, that you're trying to get your resume to bubble up to the top when you're up against some people who might have been actually doing a very similar job for a while?
Emet Anceaume:Yes, absolutely. Especially when you think about a specific therapeutic area, right? There's, you can, you're going against individuals that have, five, 10 years of experience doing the role and in that specific therapeutic area. So it's not only the therapeutic. Expertise is also the day-to-day role. Expectations that, from company to companies, they're pretty transferable. But for somebody who has never stepped foot in the role, it can be challenging.
Jonathan Kaskey:Yeah. And so you were up against this, let's just talk about your journey. How did you manage that and what kind of became your entry point to pharma?
Emet Anceaume:Yeah, so I actually did not start as an MSL. My first role within industry was as a project manager managing clinical trials. However, I was able to, I. Make that bridge, right? Transfer. There are a lot of transferable skills. Being a pharmacist that going into a project management role, it's very easy, right? You have to have good communication skills, right? You have to have good organization skills, risk management, time management. So once you just think about how you could transfer the skills that you already hone. It's very easy to make the case while you are the right candidate for this role.
Jonathan Kaskey:So you were, and what the skills you're talking about and the role you were in, what role were you in right before you joined a pharma company?
Emet Anceaume:So I would say medication therapy management pharmacist, I. So that role consists of engaging with patients, making sure that their medications are adequate, that there's no duplication of therapy, there's no polypharmacy, and make interventions on their behalf with their physicians.
Jonathan Kaskey:So you're, and can you just. Because I don't know that position su super well. Can you help? I think what's important that you shared was this idea of maybe taking a step back and saying, okay, these are the requirements for the job. From a skills perspective. How do I look at what I'm already doing on a day to day and translate. That into something that makes sense for a hiring manager and honestly puts you in a job that you think you're going to be good at, right? Because that's the ultimate goal, is to get a foot in the door, have it be successful, and then that opens up all sorts of. Options. So when you were, I wanna get like really specific, right?'cause somebody might be in this position right now, you're taking the job description and putting it on the screen and mapping out what you're doing to that on how are you actually doing this?
Emet Anceaume:Yeah. Actually, it's funny you mentioned that because that's actually what I did, right? I pull up the job description and I started sorting out different. Scenarios or looking at my current role at the time and seeing how I could make the case for that. How could I be a great asset for that company? How does my skills transfer over? I think it's important you have to really make the case. But for someone. Like myself, who was a pharmacist who had I would say a great knowledge base of the science, the technical piece was the one that they were looking for, that I was able to bridge with my skills that I had gathered in my other previous jobs as a community and as a MTM pharmacist.
Jonathan Kaskey:Yeah. I love that. I think that is a, it's a mindset shift, right? That you're talking about. And I think it's really cool to say, you know what? I know I can do this. And I, and really what it is I have to. I have to create the business case for why hiring Emmett is a good idea. But it's not really that much of a stretch when you put it out like that. What you're, what you were describing in your role working with patients seems incredibly detail oriented. Seems incredibly scientific right and complex. And so translating that over to another role clearly is possible because, you had that conversation. So then what did you find once you were in there?'cause that was not your end goal. Your end goal was not to be in the project manager space. Your end goal was to become an MSL. So describe what happened next.
Emet Anceaume:Yeah. So you know though, I would say that the most challenging part of the role was just getting accustomed to all the far more jargon, right? Because this is something, not something that you could pick up a book and study, right? It is actually on the job learning. I enjoyed the role in terms of, when I got to participate, I got the opportunity to participate in the trial designs, right? When they were building those projects. But it was very operational, right? Which for me, I wanted to get closer and closer to the science. However, being an MSL right requires you to have knowledge. Of operations.'cause you need to understand when you're talking to a physician, timelines they wanna participate in a clinical trial, right? You need to understand what are the requirements for that physician to partake in a clinical trial, right? Because not all physicians can't participate, right? They have to have the right infrastructure, the right regulatory documents. And not all of'em have that. It's important for you to know the operational piece as well as understand the science of the molecule you're supporting.
Jonathan Kaskey:And okay. And then how long after you started working at, can you share, which was this big pharma, small pharma where, what was
Emet Anceaume:It was big pharma.
Jonathan Kaskey:So how long after working there did you find yourself, with the opportunity to move into the job that you were really going for?
Emet Anceaume:After a year. After a year, yeah. I think the great thing about this role was that it gave you a lot of visibility. I. Two different functions. So I got to work really closely with the medical affairs department, especially as MSLs were contacting me about, their their PIs what kind of documents they needed, where they were. So I build that network and that rapport within the company that I think once people got to know me. When a role came up I was, it was easier for me to apply and go through the interview process.
Jonathan Kaskey:All right. So the clear takeaway here is have a long-term vision right, of where you want to go. And it seems like, I'm just gonna guess that you're pretty good at mapping things out, stepwise in your career and otherwise in your life. But it sounds like that's served you really well here.
Emet Anceaume:Yes. I think you always have. There's an element of planning, but there's also an element of persistence. I always tell, when people reach out to me and sometimes they're discouraged either because they reach out to someone on LinkedIn and they did not get a response back, or they apply to multiple roles and they were all declined. And I tell'em the story about how I applied. I think it was 50 or 62 applications. Before I ever got a call back. So there is an element of persistence, but again, it all falls back to where do you see yourself? What do you wanna do? How bad do you want
Jonathan Kaskey:a. Yeah. And I feel not to get all like life coachy, but so many things in life the benefit of a yes is way more important than how harmful a no is.'cause a no doesn't leave you in any different situation. I, so I was in business school and we had a class and it was, we were reviewing somebody's business plan as if we were like, supposedly a vc. Would you fund this or would you not fund it? The whole class was just like ripping the sky to shreds. We didn't, and what we didn't know is that the person who had written the business plan, who was the CO of the actual company, was sitting in the back row listening to this. So after we do our whole thing about why it's a terrible idea to invest in this, he comes down and he is like. Everything that you all said is what we heard from 19 of the 20 VCs that we went to. One person believed in us and funded it, and now we have a company. And so it wasn't so much about being right and wrong, it's more if you can deal with rejection, criticism, whatever, all you really need is one. And that makes, it's, we're not, it's not a popular vote, right? It's just you just need one person to say yes.
Emet Anceaume:And right how you channel also rejection. I look at rejection as redirection, right? I don't take it personal and I often find it. As an opportunity to see what areas I can improve and something I would recommend. Individuals, like when they interview and maybe they get rejected, is always ask for feedback. Is, was there something that I could have done better? What are you looking for? And believe it or not, more, more often than not, people will provide genuine feedback.
Jonathan Kaskey:Yeah, that's just it, right? It's not, it isn't personal. People are making the decisions and sometimes the feedback might, you might take it and say, okay, that actually isn't the right role for me, for example, or more. It's about I actually believe that I do have this thing that they left thinking I didn't have. So how can I present myself differently? So it's right. It's like you don't win or lose you. You win or learn. Okay. But you had another example though of somebody else that you helped take a non-traditional path to this, and I believe you had helped them get in through the sales, the commercial side of the organization. Can you share a bit about that and how that all came about?
Emet Anceaume:Yeah, so it was actually a classmate from my pharmacy school who was interested also in into breaking into pharma. But again, didn't know if, he didn't wanna relocate to the headquarters where most of the roles are usually offered. And he wanted sort to stay in the, in his territory, in his area. And sometimes it's difficult, right? Because a lot of companies will require you to relocate. Even now with after Covid, I think there's some flexibility, but this is pre covid, right? They the guidance was for folks to relocate to the headquarters. So I gave them the idea about joining. The Salesforce, because I thought, and by talking and networking within the company that I used to work for, he would actually be a great asset because while he didn't have the business piece, he had a wealth of knowledge in the therapeutic space, right? He could talk all day long about, the mechanism of action, right? The drug. I said, why don't you apply to become, a, to become part of the Salesforce? And at first he was pretty hesitant because again, you say that to somebody who their whole training, their whole life has been around the science and around just, basically a scientific background is all they know that he was just. Very hesitant about taking that leap and failing because he did not have a sales or any knowledge about the commercial side of any business. He did take my advice and he did apply and he was amazed how, the skills that he was using as a community pharmacist were very transferable to the sales role. I. Because when you go in to speak with a physician, you have to be able to speak on, on, on label, on behalf of the product that you're supporting. So it's not as, you would think you're trying to, make a sale right there and then. There's a whole r to it. That he just wasn't aware until he went through the formal training. And that's another thing, right? Maybe people are a bit intimidated because they have never had a sales role, but I. Most pharmaceutical companies that I have worked for, and I'll say that most of them ex, they spend a lot of time training their field Salesforce to be successful. There are a lot of regulations. So the training is there. The resource are there to be successful.
Jonathan Kaskey:Yeah, and I think so, so my background is in sales, not in pharma sales, but sales in general. And what I've seen both for myself and throughout my career is that. There's not one path to being good at it. What a lot of it comes down to is knowing yourself and leaning into your own strengths, and it sounds like for this person, their strengths was on the technical, the science end of it, and I can imagine. Doctors, for example, being really receptive to that, right? Because it's not about, schmoozing and glad handing and, chuckling it up, right? Because they don't really have time for that. It's, you're having that peer-to-peer conversation and the first step to anybody listening to you is to, show them that you're somebody that's worth listening to. And so probably that person's. was actually really helpful for them in a way they weren't maybe necessarily expecting.
Emet Anceaume:And also in terms of comp of his competition, the pool of competition, he stood out, right? Because a lot of the individuals applying for those roles had more business backgrounds, and he was able to differentiate himself by having a a pharm d background.
Jonathan Kaskey:And so did this person stay in a sales role or did they end up transferring over to the MSL job that they were initially looking for?
Emet Anceaume:They ended up transferring. He's an MSL today.
Jonathan Kaskey:Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really cool, right? Two very different entry points, project manager and sales. But I think the commonality for anyone, thinking about their own journey is this idea of sometimes you have to go A to B before you get to C, right? And taking in non-traditional path can actually, you can learn a lot. You meet, you get in the door and it opens up all sorts of opportunities.
Emet Anceaume:Absolutely.
Jonathan Kaskey:So in our pre-call you had talked about working for both big company, big pharma and small pharma. So I kind of wanna shift the conversation here for our last segment and just, help somebody who might be in graduate school, for example, understand what they're actually looking at and what are some of the things that might not be immediately apparent about. L rules that would make one a good fit for somebody and one a good fit for somebody else. It's not like one is good and one is bad. It's all dependent on what people are looking for. So can you just share some of your experience on big pharma versus small to start out
Emet Anceaume:Yeah, absolutely. I think, when we think about big pharma, right? Somebody taking a role within that company, they. They go in and they have a lot of support, right? That's the first role that I took. It was within a big pharmaceutical company, and they had all, I would say a pretty good, robust array of resources. They had a, somebody that was able to make the slide decks for you. Someone that was able to basically provide all your necessary tools at your fingertips. When we look at a startup, a smaller biotech, sometimes you don't have the luxury of having someone in every department that can facilitate all different areas of your work, right? So you tend to have to get comfortable wearing multiple hats. And sometimes you might have to do. The role of three individuals and maybe a big, a bigger company, that you never had to worry about that because there was a designated person for that particular area. So I think that depending if you know your personality, depending where you are in life, right? You have to also think about travel, especially when you're thinking about an MSO role because you tend to travel a lot. And that's not to say within big pharma you won't. It also, depends where they are, what stage and what territory you cover. But I'll say, you tend to travel a lot more, I would say in a smaller biotech for sure.
Jonathan Kaskey:Y Yeah, so it's funny. So a lot of, I have a lot of background running ad boards for med affairs and the big companies is it would seem significantly easier for the people working there because they have a contracting group, they have a content part, agency partner, they have this, they have that, right? And then the small company, it's 80% of your time you're just doing your various med affairs stuff and then 20% of your time, all of a sudden you're an events coordinator and by the way, you're also a contracting person. And then you have to figure out how to pay and. Track honoraria and yeah, but keep doing your day job. So for some people, and probably one of'em,'cause I've always gravitated towards startups, like that's actually fun and exciting. And other people are like, hell no. I don't want to do that. I want things to be done in a certain way and I wanna focus on not what I'm my core competencies. So it is something. It's a generalization, but that one at least is probably pretty. Universally fair, which is big companies tend to have more resources and more compartmentalization than the small companies. But one of the things that I did want to talk on just more about the day to day,'cause this was a misconception I had in our pre-call, I was picturing you, getting on the road getting in your car and just driving all over the place. Doctor, doctor to doctor, but you said for you anyway. Your territory is so big, that's actually not the case. You're more in, in airports travel. So how do you, if you're on the outside looking in, how do you evaluate a position and start to understand what the impact to your, your work life, your family life, your work life balance, all of that, and just your day to day, is this gonna be something I like doing? How do you understand what those requirements are going to
Emet Anceaume:Yeah, I think it's very important to have an honest conversation with the hiring manager about territory coverage and expectations, right? So some companies track their metrics through. Interactions in-person interactions. Some companies, count virtual interactions as as well. Some do a hybrid and I think most companies today do hybrid after covid, of course. But I think it's important when, one of the questions that I would. Recommend individuals to ask during an interview is to really get an idea of how many states they'll be covering, right? And what is the expectation of travel? Because for individuals that have families they, we're talking about work, but we have to remember we are multifaceted individuals, right? We have families, we have hobbies, et cetera. I think you need to be honest with yourself. And while the role might be. Appealing and, intriguing to you. I think you have to have an honest conversation with yourself and say, do I see myself giving this up to be able to fulfill my day-to-day duties in this role? I.
Jonathan Kaskey:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.'cause that is ultimately what it comes down to is it can look. Again, not everything is right for every person. And what is appealing to you might not be appealing to me. But digging, really digging down into the details. Travel in particular. Even from my experience, my, the travel requirements that I've been going through have changed significantly since c. I look back to how much I used to travel. I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe I did that. This is so much calmer. Now, but I remember talking to somebody who was, you're talking about how many states are you managing? In other parts of the world, it's like, how many countries are you managing, right? Because you might be even more under resourced. So those conversations probably become even more important. I would assume. Okay. Let me ask you one, one final question before we wrap up. And thank you for for all this. I've been enjoying this. If you're thinking about, if you're putting yourself back to before you got in and you're thinking about actually let me rephrase that. I'm just gonna cut that last part. So lemme ask you one final question before we end. Thinking about the pharma industry, about the MSL role, what excites you most about the potential for younger people or people fresh outta school? Thinking of beginning a career in pharma?
Emet Anceaume:Yeah. I think what excites me the most is for them to have the opportunity I. To be in the front lines frontline, excuse me, of the cutting edge research and how their efforts and their remedy of work ultimately influenced patients' lives. How, you know that meeting, that being able to communicate the, the phase three trial results of a particular drug. Makes a difference for that drug approval and ultimately changes that patient's life. To me, that's what keeps me going. That's what makes me go through like the travel days, right? The hectic schedules, the sleepless nights. At the end of the day, that's what fulfills me. That's what gives me energy and keeps me going and wanting to keep helping other people. Keep mentoring individuals that want to follow my footsteps.
Jonathan Kaskey:I love that. Alright, let's leave it there, Emmett. Thank you so much.
Emet Anceaume:you.