Will Soliman, Chairman and CEO, of Accreditation Council for Medical Affairs (ACMA) discusses the exciting opportunities available to pharmacists in the pharma industry and how to pursue them.

Name: William Soliman

Title: Chairman, Accreditation Council for Medical Affairs (ACMA)

Program: Board Certified Medical Affairs Specialist (BCMAS)

Interview Summary

Disclosure

Matt [00:00:07] Matt Paterini here with The Nontraditional Pharmacist, part of the Pharmacy Podcast Network. We have an excellent show today. Really impressive guest, actually I think our first non-pharmacist guest on The Nontraditional Pharmacist, but a very impressive resume nonetheless. He’s the chairman and CEO for the Accreditation Council for Medical Affairs (ACMA). Of course, I’m talking about Dr. Will Soliman. So Will, thanks for joining.

Will [00:00:35] Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Pleasure to be here.

Matt [00:00:38] Thank you for joining. And the show today is really going to focus the pharmacy job market and kind of your unique perspective on opportunities available to pharmacists, kind of given your unique role within the pharmaceutical industry. But maybe let’s start there and that’s a good place for us to start is your work with medical affairs. I know you’re doing some amazing things with credentialing in the medical affairs space. So maybe just explain your background a little bit and your role within the pharmaceutical community.

Will [00:01:12] Sure. My pleasure. Thanks again for having me. So my background, like you mentioned, I’m not a pharmacist, I’m a PhD. I’m married to a pharmacist, I guess that comes close. But I worked in the pharmaceutical industry for almost 20 years and I worked most of the time in an area called Medical Affairs. And today, if you’re a pharmacist and you want to work in the pharmaceutical industry, 9 times out of 10, you’re probably going to work in the function known as medical affairs. And Medical Affairs covers some of the well-known areas like drug info, pharmacovigilence, and of course are the medical science liaison functions. All those areas fall under the auspices of medical affairs. And so, you know, I really had the honor and the pleasure of working for many different types of companies over the years, worked in management consulting and then, as you mentioned, started the ACMA about five years ago now. And you knock on wood, it’s grown to be really an organization that probably never would have been able to imagine my dreams in terms of the breadth and the influence that we’ve been able to have on the pharma/medical affairs community, so I’ve been really blessed I will definitely say.

Matt [00:02:22] That incredible in a five year stretch to be able to grow a credentialing program to what you have and I think I saw somewhere that it’s in X number of countries, could you expand a little bit more on kind of the depth of ACMA at this point?

Will [00:02:40] Absolutely. So, the ACMA is a global organization. So we have offices in the US, in Europe, Asia, Mumbai, India, as well as in South America. And even in now, just recently in Abu Dhabi and the United Arab Emirates and our learners are all over the world. So we actually have what’s known as a global redirect technology in our learning system. So if you’re based in Japan, the board certification of credentialing you would get would be a little bit more relevant for that part of the world. And if you in, let’s say Brazil it would be the same situation. And the reason for that is, as you may know, a lot of the rules and regulations from a compliance standpoint are a little different when you go from country to country or region to region. So now actually, we have learners over 35 countries. And so it’s a very much, you know, a very global program and it’s growing. You know, we get people from all over the world. One of the stories that really resonated with me was a woman that was a physician who worked in the pharmaceutical industry in Kazakhstan. And, you know, in Kazakhstan, physicians don’t make the type of salary that physicians make in the US. And somehow she was able to reach out to the ACMA and find our organization and really wanted to get board certified in medical affairs, but couldn’t afford it. Because if you’re a physician, you make one hundred dollars a month. Yeah, it’s amazing. And so we ended up we gave her a scholarship. And, you know, she basically said how this was like, you know, really monumental for a career and being able to really, you know, propel herself forward and move up in Pharma. I love hearing stories like that, because at the end of the day, this is really a big part of the reason why we established ACMA is, of course, to help individuals, but really to raise the bar in the pharmaceutical industry in general.

Matt [00:04:38] So you work with a lot of folks around the world, obviously in different professions as well. These are medical professionals you working with the credentialing program. I’m curious to get your take on pharmacists specifically. What is what is your current take on just the job market in general available to pharmacists from your perspective?

Will [00:05:01] That’s a great question. A very timely question. You know, considering everything that’s been happening in the job market for pharmacists. So, you know, I think he had to take a step back. 10 to 15 years ago we saw a real surge in the number of pharmacy schools that were developing and being built out in the country. And I think one of the things we’re finding today and what I hear today is that there’s kind of this supply-demand conundrum in the pharmacists world, where you’re getting a lot of pharmacists that are graduating and they’re struggling to find roles that maybe 10 to 15 years ago weren’t as difficult to find. So what we’re finding is more and more pharmacies want to pursue opportunities elsewhere and sometimes they need to, right? So that’s where I think something like what the ACMA provides really comes into play here. And actually, we’ve been having discussions with many of the colleges of pharmacy around the world, not even just around the country, but around the world, but in particular in the US. And now what a lot of the administrators and these colleges of pharmacy are saying is that, hey, we’ve gotta provide some type of elective course or something that prepares students for the job market and for opportunities like this, because I can’t tell you how many times we’ve heard, my teams heard from pharmacists, “Wow. I wish I knew about this when I was in pharmacy school or I wish I knew about these opportunities when I was first graduating out of pharmacy school, would have been great to pursue it.” So I think what you’re doing is actually really an important thing for the profession and for the industry because it really creates more awareness about the importance of these different types of careers that folks may not have thought of. So I think today, if you’re a pharmacist and you want to work in the pharmaceutical industry, your competition aren’t just other pharmacists, but they’re physicians, th’ey’re PhD’s, they’re nurse practitioners. And to give you an idea, when we look at the demographics of the folks that are enrolled in our programs, about 35% or so are MD’s and about 35% or so are PharmD’s. The other you know, 25% to 30% are either PhD’s and a small percentage are like the NP’s and the DO’s and things like that. But, you know, pharmacists, MD’s, and PhD’s are kind of like, you know, broken down right in the middle there. And so we see a lot of pharmacists that are in the industry that pursue this because they want to distinguish themselves. And I think today, if you’re a pharmacist, you’ve got to figure out a way to really build up your CV or knowledge skills so that you have really, you know, strong functional on the job training. So if you want to work in the industry, you want to work in managed care, you have the knowledge and skills that you need.

Matt [00:07:55] Yeah, we hear a lot that, you know, the pharmacy job market is bad. You know, it’s kind of a negative view. And, well, there’s there’s saturated areas and certain areas are not the same opportunities that used to be there you know, 5-10 years ago, which I guess may be true. And I think maybe the better way to phrase that is the pharmacy job market is changing. So to your point, there’s different avenues, different things to explore, not necessarily that there are less jobs, but maybe the shift, there’s a shift and there’s different opportunities available.

Will [00:08:28] I think that’s a great way to position it. And you’re right, with digital technology and transformation, you know, in medicine in general I think it opens up new opportunities for pharmacists. I would agree.

Matt [00:08:41] So what are the some of the specific opportunities available to pharmacies as it relates to Pharma? What are some specific role titles? So people listening, they might say, yeah, there’s opportunities in Pharma/industry, that sounds good, but what specifically might pharmacists pursue?

Will [00:08:58] Sure. Great question. So I’ll kind of go through role by role. Probably the most popular role is the medical science liaison and the one that’s most well known.The medical science liaison role I think is popular for a number of reasons, most of which I think really relates to the fact that when you’re an MSL, you’re out, you’re engaging health care providers, you’re working usually from the field or from your home. So you’re out every day, it’s not a routine type of job. You got to build relationships, you’ve got to educate and present. I think, you know, you can relate as pharmacist or physician or a PhD, innately we like to educate. And so that’s part of the role as well and collaborating with different cross-functional groups. So that’s definitely I think one job is the MSL job.

The other job, I think and the other opportunity for pharmacists, certainly is medical information or drug information. And those are typically more headquarters based type roles where you’re working in a call center. And again, this can range, you know, in terms of what you would be involved in, everything from being able to take calls, inbound calls that come in from health care providers or patients, all the way to being involved in promotional, regulatory, medical, legal review of materials that would eventually go out to health care providers. So that would be another one for sure.

Another area is drug safety or what we call pharmacovigilance. And so pharmacovigilance is an area where they love to have pharmacists because it’s an area where you’re analyzing data, you’re trying to look at trends in terms of adverse events, drugs to drug interactions. Based on that data, you might discover gaps and needs when it comes to new studies that need to be looked at or developed to address certain issues that might impact the medical community.

Another area is a medical communication and scientific communications, which also includes publication planning. And this is an area where, you know, you would be involved in understanding and planning what’s the long term strategic plan for publications for a particular product or device, etc. And once a communications plan in terms of what should be communicated and then what we call the scientific platform when it gets developed for a product or a device, etc.

And then the other two things that I would mention that a lot of people aren’t aware of, and where there’s opportunities if you’re going to some of these websites and looking for jobs, is looking at medical education companies, promotional medtech companies, advertising agencies who serves the pharmaceutical industry. So if you’re having a difficult time breaking into a pharma company, I would consider looking at some of these agencies who are solutions providers to pharma. You know, there’s a lot of a lot of these companies are looking for people that have clinical backgrounds. And so these are companies that are looking for people that would have titles like scientific director or medical director. You typically start an associate level. A lot of times there’s a lot of medical writer positions.

And in the last area, I would say is managed care. So you have companies like United, Aetna, Optum, Cigna, all these companies, they would love to have professionals with a background in pharmacy who can work with these providers to look at and assess records of patients, information from health care providers and try to understand the business needs and what not. And also collaborating with Pharma on their end. And so there are different areas, it’s not just strictly Pharma but I would say those three verticals are where you’re going to find a lot of opportunities.

Matt [00:12:39] That’s incredible. There really are a lot of different opportunities available. Just when someone says pharmaceutical industry or industry in general, a lot of our listeners and our viewers in The Nontraditional Pharmacist community are students. We also have a large number of pharmacists. Many of these people are either looking to find their first role out of school or make a transition. What advice would you give to them should they be looking to get involved in some of these things? Medical science liaison, medical info, medical communications, pharmacovigilance. You kind of mentioned some of it already a little bit. Looking at agencies, solutions providers to Pharma, but what other advice would you give to either students looking to pursue one of those avenues you mentioned or pharmacists looking to make a transition?

Will [00:13:29] Yeah, very good question. I would say, you know, step one really is to get certified because think about it. When you go into an interview and people start to ask you questions, and I’ve heard this from folks that go to Midyear and, you know, they’re trying to go for these fellowships in industry. And I’ve heard from many, many, many people that have said, you know, because I had been certified, I was able to answer a lot of questions and I was able to discuss in detail kind of like what my thinking was. And they were able to see that I had a lot of in-depth knowledge. So getting more education and training, it’s so specific, it will give you a huge return on your investment. It is totally worth it and I’m very confident you’ll you’ll see a lot of benefit. But outside of that, I would say really think about what niche you want to focus on and what area you really want to be an expert in. One of the pieces of advice I give to any individual who’s trying to build a career in this area is really become an expert in a certain therapeutic area or in a certain area in general and really try to be known in that area .

And part of that then, the third aspect of that is networking and really building a strong network. And nowadays with LinkedIn, it’s pretty easy and you’ll be able to connect with folks and really reach out and build networks where you can go to live events and things like that. And that’s one of the reasons actually what we do at the ACMA is when you actually get board certified or certified, it’s not like you’re just certified and it’s done. Anyone that is board certified in medical affairs for the ACMA automatically becomes part of the ACMA society. And when you are part of the ACMA society,  you get to go to live events, attend webinars. And we did that because we know how important it is to really have a network and have a community. So being part of a community of professionals that you want to work in that space with, that’s so important, right. Because a lot of times the reality is, you know, having those connections matters. You know, sometimes it is who you know. And so that makes a big difference. And so I would absolutely encourage people to become part of that network, attend those events, you know, be part of those societies, because you’re going to inevitably meet individuals that can help you. And think about even, you know, doing a rotation or internship with some of these organizations you want to work with. We’ve had actually at ACMA, we’re really blessed to have a lot of students that come to us from Rutgers, St John’s, you know, a lot of the other schools in the northeast area, they’ll come do their rotations, actually industry rotations with the ACMA, and doing the rotations the feedback that we get as they learn so much. And because of all that learning and the education they get, they’re able to apply that and build those relationships when they eventually get in the workplace.

So it’s just, you know, small things, little ideas, but I would recommend it. The biggest thing I would say is your resumé, you know, really have a solid resume. I’m sure there’s services either at university or you can hire folks that can really help you to develop a professional looking resume. And the resumé, you need to figure out how to make it stand out. There’s different ways to do that, but that’s critical. And then really, you know, really educating yourself on interviewing skills and how do you really boost up your soft skills so that when you’re out speaking with folks in an interview, you’re really able to convey why you’re the best candidate for a position. So I think it’s a combination of those different things.

Matt [00:17:13] Yeah, you said some of those are small things. And I guess maybe they are small things. But so important, you know, we talk about networking in a lot of people throw that term around networking, but really making those connections with individuals that are in a position to either provide that experience, additional education, or simply help out, help you through the process. Some of these things, you know, just navigating a process within a new company or a new organization can be difficult. So you know, who you work with and those connections you make are are incredibly important. And of course, you mentioned additional education is is always a positive. And talking about the ACMA, back to the certification program. How does someone go to become involved with that? Say someone’s listening to this episode and they say, “that sounds like something I’d be interested in. I’m not sure where it will take me in terms of some of these opportunities that we’ve talked about.” But where do I go to get started with the board certification process if that is the next step they want to pursue?

Will [00:18:20] It’s real simple. You go to our website, www.medicalaffairsspecialist.org or you could just Google “ACMA Medical Affairs” and you know, you can go on our website, register, and you can schedule time to speak with one of the academic advisors that the ACMA has, they would be happy to help you kind of learn a little bit more about the opportunity, but you can actually apply directly online. You can speak with other individuals that have gotten board certified. If you go on LinkedIn, you’ll see there’s plenty of folks that actually have the credential, the BCMAS credentials, hundreds and hundreds of them that actually use it on their LinkedIn profile. So I always encourage folks to reach out to those that have actually went through the process and hear it firsthand from them. But it’s simple, it’s all online. One of things that we really try to do is make the process as simple as possible. So ACMA has a 24 hour, seven days a week live chat support. So you can go online and know ask any of our team members about questions related to the process, the exams, etc. They’ll be more than happy to answer. And of course, like I mentioned, we have telephone support as well and members that can answer questions live.

Matt [00:19:31] Well Will, I want to thank you for your insight today and all of your help in navigating the pharmaceutical industry. It can be tough, I think especially for pharmacists that don’t have the exposure, don’t have that knowledge up front. Before I let you go, I do want to ask you our final question, which is how do you see the Pharma landscape changing as we move forward here in the future?

Will [00:19:53] It’s a very good question. So I’ll tell you what I told I think it was on Fox News when I was on that television show two weeks ago, the same thing, which is that pharma really needs to rebrand itself. And I think part of that really is going to mean that they need to raise the bar on the standards they have in the space related to how they educate health care providers. I think branding themselves, setting higher standards, and really figuring out how they can serve the public and keep that in mind first and foremost. So I think that’s going to be, especially with the opioid crisis, and now with the election coming up, all the talk about drug pricing, thinking about how do they really send that message across to the public that we care and that you guys, you know, the patients are first and foremost in our minds.

Matt [00:20:46] Excellently said, Will again, thank you so much for taking the time. Joining us on The Nontraditional Pharmacist. I think your insight insights going to resonate very well with not only our student listeners, but also our pharmacist listeners. Thank you again. Then we look forward to listening to your future content and everyone, we’ll see you next time on The Nontraditional Pharmacist.

Will [00:21:09] Thank you.