CILIP | Health Libraries Group

Working in a Pharmaceutical Company: Medical Information Officer/Company Librarian

by Helena Korjonen-Close

Organisation
Working as a medical information officer/company librarian in a pharmaceutical company is challenging, varied, fast-paced and rewarding.

The medical information function is the service provided in answering enquiries and meeting the needs of external and internal customers in the provision of information about the company's products.

Medical information professionals play one of the most important roles in pharmaceutical companies in terms of customer contact. Professional development is encouraged including attending conferences, meetings and training courses.

Main Duties
• Enquiry handling; handling enquiries from side effects, interactions, product complaints, adverse events etc. This includes research, literature searches, gathering evidence and summarising these accurately and non-promotionally.

• Library management; management of reprints, clinical papers, purchase of books/journals, cataloguing and classification, digitisation projects, managing current awareness.

• Projects; setting up and maintaining a library website, input into the sales and enquiry database design, digitisation project, product launches.

• Promotional copy; reviewing promotional material, ensuring material is factually correct and referencing is accurate.

• Medical advice to Sales/Marketing; attending meetings, input into strategic planning of product launches and materials, input into sales force training, attending sales conferences and other sales force support.

• Contact with organisations such as NICE, Cochrane, the NHS, and other health organisations including charitable.

• Medical writing; preparation of materials, writing standard letters, summarising clinical trials and recent press/media events.

• Management; contact person for the CLA, data protection advisor, records management advisor, advising on issues relating to information protection and knowledge management, member of the crisis management team, managing information and customer satisfaction surveys.

Helena Korjonen-Close
Medical Information Officer/Company Librarian
Merck Pharmaceuticals
hkorjonen-close@merckpharma.co.uk

Updated: 24 October 2005