Working in Pharma - entry roles?

[tigerbread20]

Long story short, I’m a 3rd year student nurse. Desperately want to drop out so need an end goal to keep me motivated. I have absolutely no desire to work as a nurse anymore, Covid has sucked the love and life from me.

I have some friends working in marketing in Pharma and they’ve suggested I look at finding a way in to the industry, however they are from different educational backgrounds so couldn’t offer much advice on what doors a nursing degree could open?
Any suggestions of what roles would be happy with a nursing degree to meet entry requirements? I’ve spent some time looking on job sites but thought some insider knowledge would be great. Happy to do some further training to improve my CV if there is anything that would be beneficial? Also expecting I’ll need an entry level role to get my foot in the door but would be keen for an area where there is good progression available. Thanks!

Sales roles? Your nursing degree would be relevant.

Clinical trial rep (CRA I think)?

I worked in Pharma 20 yrs ago, but we had nurse teams running ad hoc clinics in GP surgeries. Not sure if they still do.

Clinical trial assistant (CTA) or similar? Usually admin type roles, they don’t ask for much experience but request a healthcare/m or science background

It’s usually a good stepping stone to other roles, I got into clinical trial management this way which is a straight line progression but there are plenty of other roles.

There are also CTA roles within hospitals which is a good training ground, and look at Contract Research Organisations as well as Pharma.

CRA. You would probably need to go into a clinical research organisation first and then move to pharma. There are also roles in the NHS or university departments which would give you good experience before applying.
CROs include people like Parexel, iQuivia (not sure of spelling) & many many more. They are contracted to run studies by the pharma companies.

This is the industry group for clinical research
icr-global.org/

Also there are CTAs in universities so jobs.ac.uk. The pay is less than in private companies but if you get a year or so experience there it’s a great start to progress somewhere else.

Entry level roles in medical communications agencies or consulting firms could be a good option, alternatively you could try and get into a pharma company in an administration or co-ordination role and then try and get exposure to other areas of the business and specialise from there.

This is all great info thank you! Will have a proper read and absorb once I’ve got my kids to bed.

I’m a CRA - you would probably have to go in as a CTA/CTC if you have no research background . It’s a good time for hiring at the moment, starting salaries are much higher than they were.