BioCareers, a career service for life scientists with advanced degrees, provides an informative description of medical affairs. The author explains:
“While there is some variation in segmentation and structure, most pharmaceutical companies have two kinds of scientific teams: research / development and medical affairs. While R & D defines the scientific direction and early stage development, medical affairs provides scientific support for late stage development and post market support for drugs and devices. In small companies, the same team may be responsible for both kinds of activities.”
They go on to explain that medical affairs can encompass a wide variety of activities, many of them scientific, informational, communications, and interpersonal in nature. Personal characteristics particularly useful to the field include joy in building relationships and a mind for entrepreneurism.
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