Name: Nabeel Qureshi
Title: Medical Liaison, Managed Markets
Interview Summary
Matt [00:00:00] Matt Paterini here with The Nontraditional Pharmacist, part of the Pharmacy Podcast Network. We have Nabeel Qureshi on the show today. Really excited for him as a guest because he is an MSL, medical science liaison for Novo Nordisk in managed markets and I think part of our community in The Nontraditional Pharmacist is very hungry for more industry-focused interviews, more in-depth options that might be available to pharmacists either graduating now or looking to make a career change in industry. So excited to have you on the show and Nabeel, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule.
Nabeel [00:00:44] Yeah, you’re very welcome.
Matt [00:00:44] Excellent so let’s get started with kind of the first question, we kind of like to kick off our interviews with an overview of your current role, it’s a nontraditional role medical science liaison and I think a lot of people have heard about it and maybe know some bits and pieces, and I know it can vary to some degree, so if you could just describe your current role, description of day to day responsibilities, and what you do from a day to day basis.
Nabeel [00:01:08] Sure. Yeah. So as you just pointed out your audience may already be familiar with the traditional MSL role. So traditionally a medical science liaison calls on physicians and hospitals and key opinion leaders (KOL) to provide them with most current scientific evidence around a particular disease state, talk about the drug pipeline for their company and their competitors companies, talk about their products, on-label information, off-label information and answer medical information questions at a level that you know a practicing clinician may not be well versed in the day-to-day practice. That’s sort of the traditional MSL role, so that’s really what my role is. What’s different about being a managed market ML, a medical liaison, is that instead of a physician or hospital or KOL being my typical customer, my customers are really payers, so managed care organizations and employer groups. So we refer to that collectively as being market access. And so I’m meeting day to day with health plans, with employers, associations to provide clinicians and non-clinicians with that most current clinical evidence and information around our disease sates and products.
Matt [00:02:20] Got it, good overview. Yes so a little bit different maybe than some of the other MSL roles and I mean I think everyone would be curious to know how the heck did you get into MSL in the first place. What’s your story through, I guess we’ll start with pharmacy school and then what you did either there shortly after and how you got to where you are today.
Nabeel [00:02:38] Sure yeah. So my story starts maybe a little bit before pharmacy school. I actually never wanted to be a pharmacist. I didn’t know any pharmacists, I had no interest in it, I didn’t know anything about it. I was actually pursuing a career in epidemiology. I liked math, I liked biology, and epidemiology is kind of a good intersection of the two and so I was working in epi at a cancer site, so surveillance for epidemiology. And I was doing an MPH degree and during that MPH degree I learned about nontraditional pharmacy roles and things the pharmacist can do outside of the four walls of a pharmacy. That piqued my interest and so at the same time was kind of getting turned off to doing just research and so I ended up applying to pharmacy school. And when I went in, I went with the intention that I may do something nontraditional, with a population-health focus. And so managed care was a good fit. And so I did internships during school in managed care pharmacy, I did coming out of pharmacy school a residency a managed care pharmacy where you’re really rotating through learning about all sorts of different areas within the health plan. So all the different things that a pharmacist can do working at a big health plan, like Fraud, Waste and Abuse, in specialty pharmacy, benefit design, and account management and prior authorization, formulary management, and clinical programs and all that kind of fun stuff. During the residency I got a lot of good experience there. I stayed on where I was doing my residency as a clinical pharmacist for about five years working on various clinical programs and then this opportunity came up where I was I was involved in a lot of chronic disease programs, including diabetes, and there was an opportunity that came up to work for diabetes and obesity company I mean we have other products but that’s really the bulk of our business. And so really we’re gonna be focused on health plans. And so I would still have that managed care focus. I still go into my customers and have very much a population health discussion but so it’s through that lens that I’m approaching the customer, but I’m still talking about our products and our disease state, and the clinical information and so that was kind of my transition. My career path is really started off in managed care and now I’m on the Pharma side. So now my customers are managed care.
Matt [00:04:57] How much of the decision to pick this path or pursue this path was done in kind of like pre-work where you thought this is the type of work I want to do. I don’t really know what the role is but this is what I’m good at, this is what I want to do, I’m going to work towards that type of job. How much of your thought process involved that?
Nabeel [00:05:20] You know my thought process always involved really, what is it that I enjoy, combined with what is that I’m good at, combined with you know where where are the opportunities. So I didn’t necessarily seek out the specific managed care pharmacist role that I had for five years. I didn’t really seek out the residency necessarily, I didn’t seek out this role, but when opportunities came up they were roles that really accentuated might my strengths and my interest. And so you know I was never gunning in pharmacy school for a pharma job per say, that that’s not really what my interest was. And similarly really for managed care it was the same thing, it was more kind of just took things one step at a time and saw hey you know what that really interests me and I think I’ll excel in that. And so you know I think I could see myself doing that. So it wasn’t so premeditated in terms of like the exact career path, but more so what my interests interests are.
Matt [00:06:12] When you said opportunities that came up, were those ones that you sought out specifically or what did you do to come in contact with those opportunities?
Nabeel [00:06:24] So my current opportunity was I was recruited for it by the company, and then by individuals who work in the company that I happened to work with through my role in the managed care world. And managed care you know I did seek those opportunities out when I was in pharmacy school. I was looking into residencies. I was a little bit on the fense of whether or not to do one. Ultimately, I’m glad I did do one because you know I ended up getting a lot of experiences that I otherwise wouldn’t have. You know once you get into a pharmacist role, you’re often pigeonholed into doing just one or two or three things, whereas in the residency you really get a breadth of experience. In a managed care, if you’re a pharmacist, there is so much to learn there. So I gained a lot of exposure during that process and was able to carry some of that into my career and still even today when I go into my customers, I’m able to draw back on some of those experiences all the way from residency. So kind of a combination of seeking out specific opportunities, especially when I was in school and even when I was in my residency, looking for specific rotations or experiences or projects and then jobs, but then I guess as I evolved in my career, some of opportunities can open up on their own to some extent or organically.
Matt [00:07:43] So how’s everything going today. I mean do you like what you’re doing? Are you excited about it every day? How does this fit in with your personal and professional life?
Nabeel [00:07:53] Yeah. I love it. You know like I said, it’s something that I feel like I’m good at. It’s something that I enjoy. It’s something where I feel like it can make an impact. You know when I go into a customer and provide them clinical information. I’ll give you an example, today I was with a customer. It was a big Employer Health Coalition group and they represent nearly a million lives across 34 states. So any formulary decision that they’re making on products can be quite consequential right to the health of thousands, in this case almost a million people, and my company has a new product coming out and I’ll be able to give them a full clinical downloader on that product and really kind of take information that they would have been seeking out, some of that’s not published. That would’ve taken them a lot of time to look into and I was able to connect with them. They were also pharmacists by training, so I was able to connect with them clinically and provide information that’s going to make their lives easier and potentially open up those products to a lot of patients that could potentially benefit from it. So you know just kind of like the feedback that you get and it’s really exciting. The other thing I like about it is you know, there’s kind of an adrenaline rush. The appointments that I’m in, they do feel to some extent like they’re high stakes because you know we’re providing information to a customer that’s making a four minute decision for as I said potentially a lot of people. Ultimately, market access, getting those products on the formulary, while that isn’t my job, I work with commercial colleague and that’s really their job. Mine is to provide you know unbiased medical information. The fact that you can have that impact your company, that’s also very fulfilling.
Matt [00:09:45] That’s awesome. That’s awesome. It sounds like you fill everything that you’re looking for from a professional sense. How does it fit in with personal life? Everything fit where you want it to be with the balance between the two?
Nabeel [00:09:59] Yeah I think so. I mean it’s it kind of flows a little bit. I mean in some ways like this week in particular, you feel like you’re working all the time and especially in my job I cover a four state territory so there is you know a certain degree of travel involved. And so you know this was one of those weeks for sure where you know it goes out you know almost four days. And so there’s there’s that downside but it’s mostly upside honestly. You have a lot of autonomy, you feel like you own your own business. You can manage you schedule to some extent around customer internal/external. So yeah there’s definitely a lot a lot of personal balance that you can have in this position.
Matt [00:10:49] When I was going through pharmacy school I actually was signed up for an MSL rotation which I thought was gonna be pretty cool and I was excited do it. Ultimately it got cancelled and I did do something else but where where do people go that might be interested in learning more about MSL’s and the range of roles that can be included in MSL, because a lot of people will ask us hey, an MSL sounds like something that I might be interested in. I don’t know how to get experience, I don’t where to go to learn more. So how would you advise them?
Nabeel [00:11:23] Yeah that’s a great question. Are you asking about people in school or people who are out of school?
Matt [00:11:29] I guess both. Let’s start with, let’s start with students. What about students that might be interested in industry, particularly MSL. Where would be their first step?
Nabeel [00:11:38] Yes. That’s a tough question for me because as I said, when I was in school I was never really interested in it. It is something that you know I love doing now, but it’s not something I was seeking out at that time. But I think typically from what I’ve see now that I’m in industry, the pharmaceutical industry, most people will seek out fellowships and so a good place to start could be AMCP, the annual meeting in the spring or the next meeting and in the fall. Particularly if you’re managed markets MSL role, which is what I have. The other day conference Mid-Year. So I know we have a booth at midyear, our company and I know other companies as well, so we recruit for fellowships. That’s often a good way to break into it because you get in-house medical training and then you’re able to leverage that to be in the field as a medical science liaison. So I’d say that those are two good place to start. I think additionally, organizations like the ISPOR and Pharma and some of the other ones, if you have a chapter in your school that you can get involved with or even if you don’t maybe starting a chapter, and going to their website and kind of getting familiar with their meetings. I feel like meetings are always a great place to just kind of get in the know, meet people, shake some hands, hand out your business card, have those one-on-one conversations with people because I mean there might be opportunities that aren’t even posted that you wouldn’t otherwise know of until you got there and meet people.
Matt [00:13:08] What about for more experienced pharmacists that may be looking for a change. They have some detailed or some in-depth experience in one area pharmacy, maybe looking to make a shift towards industry, MSL type jobs what would you say to them?
Nabeel [00:13:24] You know with them, I always say kind of try to take whatever it is that you’re doing and find something unique about it, find something that you can work on within that job that in some way relates to a future job. So with my last job it very much relates to. I mean my job now my customers where I used to work essentially right. So all my customers, there’s a certain language there. And when I tell them that, that adds some credibility. And so for me that was a big leg up for sure. And a lot of the people in my company and others that I’ve been hired into this role, they come from the managed care world. But yeah if you’re looking to break into the MSL role, let’s just say you’re interested in oncology then obviously I think it would be beneficial if you can work in a cancer oncology pharmacy. Or if you are interested in diabetes in the Ambulatory Care space if you were providing direct patient care to patients with diabetes you know that would be very beneficial getting that clinical experience. I would say that in any MSL role that you’re in, being clinically sound is very important because ultimately that is your value that you are the scientific expert on all the content in your disease and your products. And so it’s really important to be able to demonstrate that, but that’s kind of just the baseline. So I’d say that regardless of where you are, try and get experience that shows that you are an expert, whether it’s research and publishing or taking care of patients or working on you know quality improvement projects or things like that.
Matt [00:14:56] Yeah. Getting experience is so huge. And experience is kind of a broad term too. I mean experience could be discussions with you know experts in the industry, it could be like you said getting involved with projects, attending meetings. I mean experience could really mean anything as long as it’s geared towards that next direction that you want to take. What would you say and what do you think, Nabeel is the future direction of the pharmacy profession? I mean this is a big question. What do you think?
Nabeel [00:15:25] Well it’s quite profound. The future direction of pharmacy as a whole?
Matt [00:15:29] Yes.
Nabeel [00:15:34] That’s such a great question. I mean I think, it’s going to get more clinical, going to get more specialized. You’re going to see people in increasingly in roles in which like my role probably didn’t exist until now. But the markets kind of demanded it. And you know, there’s a specialized language around managed care that I’m versed in. Similarly I would say that other roles within pharmacy, look at specialty pharmacy and that kind of experience or home infusion and I think it’s just going to get more and more specialized. I think automation obviously is something top of line for a lot of pharmacists, robotics, and you know decentralization of pharmacy, changing legislation which you’re going to advance the roles of technicians. All that I think is going to change traditional retail pharmacy, maybe take potentially pharmacists outside of you know from behind the counter to front of the counter. You know and I think that the other aspect of it is that I guess I’d lump it all together. Pharmacoepidemiology, pharmacoeconomics, the business of pharmacy, the market dynamics around the cost of drugs and across the drug development, changes in legislation. I think that for pharmacists to become increasingly well-versed in that. I know when my last role in managed care we worked a lot with ambulatory care pharmacists that were very interested in billing us as the payer for direct patient care services. So I think the extent to which pharmacists can be entrepreneurial, like yourself, and branch out and really sort of carved their own path. I think that that that’s actually also going to be part of the future of our profession.
Matt [00:17:28] When Nabeel, thanks so much for your insight, your perspective. Carve your own path. Sounds like get a lot of experience in a number of different ways, whether that’s connections with other people or getting involved in special projects. Again Nabeel thank you so much for taking time out of your busy MSL schedule. We appreciate you taking the time with The Nontraditional Pharmacist.
Nabeel [00:17:48] Yeah. Thank you as well.