Medical Communication plays a crucial role in disseminating medical/scientific information to end users, who are either patients or health care professionals (HCPs).

Sowmya Madhavadas, our next pathbreaker, leads a team of scientific advisors who are responsible for managing the company’s scientific and clinical data involving promotional as well as non-promotional materials.

Sowmya talks to Shyam Krishnamurthy from The Interview Portal about her work on multiple therapy areas such as Oncology, Neuroscience & Cardiovascular diseases and transitioning from an academic to corporate environment.

For students, communicating the right information pertaining to the product at the right time has never been as critical as it is in the healthcare sector !

Sowmya, tell us what were your growing up years like?

I am Sowmya and I did my primary, and secondary schooling, graduation, and post-graduation in Andhra Pradesh. My father was a Bank employee, and my mother is a housewife. My first teacher is my mother who always instilled in me the value of education and how it could be a wonderful thing that it can be a life itself. Now I am living that very beautiful life by chasing my dream of completing the highest degree of education (PhD). I always had a service-oriented mindset. I wanted to help this society by contributing something from my end. Since childhood, I dreamt of pursuing medicine, but in those days, way back in 2000, I couldn’t get a free seat in medical colleges in Andhra Pradesh through my rank. I was always very clear that if not medicine I will do research. Many students don’t know how  to pursue a career based on their interests, or what options they have when they are in their transition years. Most of them go with their scores in their exams and choose those subjects in which they score well. I was sure that I will do research in genetics in grade 9 itself when I was first introduced to Mendelian laws and the discovery of DNA. Since then, my role model has been Rosalind Franklin. Though she has always been mentioned as the wrong hero in the discovery of DNA helix, her passion and dedication towards research really made me think along those lines. Passion towards something will always show you ways to achieve what you want. So, doing research and finding a cure for a specific disease has become my dream. I am a very creative person. I enjoy painting landscapes (plain air painting) during my free time. I was a nerd as a child and never really enjoyed playing any sports, though I used to watch cricket a lot with my parents and younger sister.

What did you do for graduation/post graduation?

I did my Bachelor’s in Biotechnology and passed out in 2003 from Andhra University. I did my post-graduation in Molecular Genetics from Andhra University (2005) followed by M.Phil and PhD from National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS)

What made you choose such an offbeat, unconventional and uncommon career?

As I mentioned earlier, my key influencers have been Rosalind Franklin, GJ Mendel and some of my mentors are Sukeshini, P.V. Rao, Dr. Sarada Subramanian (My PhD mentor)

In my grade 4, during a science exhibition in my school, I talked about the human digestive system for 4 minutes in front of the chief guest who was a surgeon in one of the nearby hospitals. I still remember my father making a sketch of the human digestive system and preparing me to communicate the points during the event. While preparing for the talk, I realized that our body is like a machine and it keeps doing things that are assigned to it so well and any dysfunction can lead to a disease. This triggered my interests to learn more about each system in our body. My curiosity and interest intensified with more reading, and my passion to do something to cure a disease also increased.

During the 1st year of my BSc, I took Biotechnology. Since it was a new field, I used to spend a lot of time in the library looking for books. While reading about chromatography, gene sequencing, recombinant technology, my interest in making my own notes and analyzing the concepts helped me to clear national entrance exams like TIFR integrated PhD program in my 2nd year of BSc. During practical sessions, we used to have external examiners who used to evaluate our knowledge. Those examiners as well as our professors helped me in choosing the right path. I chose Molecular genetics as the main subject in my post-graduation. 

How did you plan the steps to get into the career you wanted? Or how did you make a transition to a new career? Tell us about your career path

I gave several national-level entrance tests to get into premier institutes to do a PhD in Bangalore. I went and met a few professors in person at IISC and NIMHANS. I even spoke to PhD students who were doing their research in those labs. That gave me clarity with respect to the approach that I needed to follow.

I did my internship in Aurobindo labs on instrumentation during my post graduation in Visakhapatnam.

I did MPhil in Neurosciences from NIMHANS, Bangalore prior to my PhD. This was like a bridging course for my transition into the field of neuroscience from genetics. Although it comes under the life sciences umbrella, neuroscience is a very complicated subject. In the 2 years of my MPhil Program, I learned a lot about the human brain. We had great sessions with wonderful professors from this prestigious institute. Every day, I used to feel that this is the dream that I am living. I did my MPhil Dissertation under Dr. Sarada Subramanian from the Neurochemistry laboratory. Neurochemistry is that field where scientists work on brain chemicals. Alteration in those chemicals can lead to many psychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases. My work was mainly in determining the effect of anti-MAPYYR antibodies on destabilization of preformed Aβ fibrils (the main culprit in causing Alzheimer’s disease) in-vitro using fluorescence spectroscopy with thioflavin T. In common terms, in-vitro analysis of a protein, which is developed against the diseased protein, is done  to see whether it is helpful in reducing the protein accumulation which causes Alzheimer’s disease. Post that, I took a 3 year career break due to personal issues. It is not an easy journey for women scientists especially if you don’t have family support. 

In 2010, I came back to NIMHANS under the same Professor for my PhD. It took 6 years to complete my objectives and I defended my thesis in October 2016. I developed an animal model for obesity and type 2 diabetes and analyzed the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease in this animal model. I used several natural and synthetic analogues to reverse Alzheimer’s disease in the same developed animal model. I achieved what I dreamt of, which were some findings to reverse cognitive deterioration in the animal model that I developed. I have 8 publications based on my research work in international journals with a good impact factor. After getting my doctorate, I felt that no matter what, I contributed something to the research world with my publications. My work, even after so many years, has been cited by many scientists in the same field. This makes me feel very happy that I gave back to this society. 

Reading articles related to the field that you would like to pursue your future career in will always give that goal-oriented direction in life. Keep timelines and dream about your future and again chase those dreams by setting goals. Preparation is the key for a successful start.

How did you get your first break?

After my PhD, I initially thought of continuing with my research work by doing a postdoc. I got very good opportunities from top institutes around the world like NUS, Singapore, ICL, London. I opted to be only in India and started looking for industrial opportunities as I felt post-doc can only provide a temporary approach and it might be only in a single field of interest. My passion is to explore multiple therapy areas. I got an offer from Indegene Pvt Ltd as a Medical reviewer. As a medical reviewer, I used to provide scientific and medical suggestions to clinical trial reports (CTRs) developed by trial experts, pipeline product (drugs which are still in research phase) presentations, responses to health care professionals (HCPs) on certain queries related to the company’s drugs. We must follow certain global standards to review these documents as per pharma industry regulations. People with PhD and MD degrees will only be taken for such positions. So that’s how my education gave me this opportunity. I used to work on oncology (Ovarian, breast, lung and blood cancer), neurodegenerative (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) and cardiovascular disease (heart failure, coronary artery disease) associated products. It was a total shift from academia to corporate. I adjusted to the nuances of my new job. I learned a lot while working in Indegene. 

What were some of the challenges you faced? How did you address them?

Challenge 1: Academic Profile to Corporate 

Challenge 2: Shift from research to complete review job

Challenge 3: Adjusting to time bound deadlines

Initially, it was difficult to adjust to corporate life, especially working in a CRO (Contract Research Organization), where everyone judges you right from your dress sense to how you communicate. In research, no one bothers about the time when you come to the lab and the time you leave. My guide used to see annual reports with results and publications, whereas in corporations it is all about tight timelines, feedback, long & extended hours, toxic colleagues and negative culture, especially if client feedback is not good, which will drain your energy and thinking. Though I struggled for 6 months, I challenged myself to adjust to my new routine. First thing I did was take training from mentors. I learned how to prioritize my tasks. Since I am a multi-tasker, prioritization helped me to quickly complete my targets. After reading and getting myself familiarized with tasks, I started liking my new job and started to do my best. I started getting recognition for my work and expanded my profile to other therapy areas. I became a mentor soon. I trained a few freshers. This gave me the confidence to look for better opportunities in product-based companies. My learnings are that it is always good to seek advice from mentors, and being honest will always take you to greater heights. I learned from my PhD guide that we need to be humble in any circumstance and can never own anything. Hardwork has no substitute, and I normally don’t give up on anything so easily.  I started looking for opportunities and saw a post in linkedin at Novo Nordisk for a scientific advisor role.

Where do you work now? 

In 2018, I joined Novo Nordisk as a Scientific Advisor. It was my dream job and I am still associated with Novo Nordisk. I progressed in my career and now I am a people manager leading people and guiding them in their day-to-day tasks and for their personal development.

What problems do you solve?

My job involves reviewing and developing content that is related to specific products that my company owns. For example, the company where I am associated with currently develops drugs for diabetes, obesity, and for rare diseases like haemophilia and sickle cell disease. My role involves communicating the right information about a product (haemophilia disease product) or a device to patients (injectable device-pen, or a Blood glucose monitoring meter) and health care professionals (HCPs) globally. Medical communication is part of the medical affairs team in the pharma industry. As scientific advisors in the medical communication team which is part of the medical affairs department, we take complete ownership in the development of materials like presentations related to disease awareness to trial information such as trial results, publications, training materials etc. which we develop for doctors/HCPs and patients. We develop content and communication information for drugs which are in development phase as well as for those which are already in the market after approval. We help our company’s key opinion leaders (KOLs) by providing the data that we haver and seek their advice by conducting advisory boards. We even help our medical directors and medical science liaisons (MSLs) in conducting several educational training sessions to communicate the information of drugs to doctors/HCPs from different countries. We help our medical teams in launching new products by developing all the content that is required for launch. As a people manager, I am currently leading a team of scientific advisors and we are responsible for managing the company’s scientific and clinical data involving promotional as well as non-promotional materials. Promotional data we develop mainly for our sales team and non-promotional data for doctors/HCPs and patients. These materials are used by our company people as internal documents. Some documents like publications, presentations that our company’s key opinion leaders’ present in congresses will be made available for external use. Some disease awareness educational materials that we develop are intended for patients. They can be videos, podcasts or even patient testimonials. So in a nutshell, due to a high demand for knowledge about drugs, a medical communication employee, like a scientific advisor/medical advisor, is part of the medical affairs department in a pharma company and plays a crucial role in disseminating medical/scientific information. I and my team members play an important role in strategic decisions related to a particular product which we work on. 

What skills are needed in your role? How did you acquire the skills?

Skills: High level scientific accuracy, problem-solving, research advice, attention to detail, Innovative thinking, Providing scientific solutions, business understanding .

What’s a typical day like?

A typical day goes in meetings with higher management teams, discussion with employees reporting to me, conducting project status discussions, brainstorming for innovation that needs to be included in our projects, learning on new therapy areas, and reviewing and providing guidance

What is it you love about this job?

I love the idea of driving change by communicating medical data to provide awareness of many diseases to patients and HCPs.  

How does your work benefit society? 

Indirectly, my work helps in communicating medical data in a very simple way to end users, who are either patients or health care professionals (HCPs) globally. We seek guidance from our company’s key opinion leaders before we progress in our clinical trials. We develop materials that help in the launch of new drugs that our company makes.

Tell us an example of a specific memorable work you did that is very close to you!

Every project that I did is specific and memorable to me. One project where I proposed a business case for a strategic project was very close to me. It is currently in progress and once it gets released, it benefits all the people who are working in that therapy area.

Your advice to students based on your experience?

Never give up on your dreams, chase them, and achieve them!! Nothing comes easy, so work towards your goals. Make your plans, have clarity in what you want to pursue. Reach out to experts and seek advice.

Future Plans?

To help my team achieve their goals and to work towards my company’s ambition. My ultimate goal is to give back to society what I earned. I believe my scientific knowledge can help in uplifting those who have the same scientific temperament to give back to this society by making patients’ lives better.