One of the most considered career paths in the medical is major pharmaceuticals. You are probably considering pursuing a career along the major pharmaceutical line, but you are wondering if major pharmaceutical is a good career path?
This guide is designed to help you, and help you make an informed decision about major pharmaceuticals. All the subsections here will drive you towards your answer.
What Are Major Pharmaceuticals?
It is important that you have an overview of the career path of major pharmaceuticals, as you are already considering it. Let me give you a simple overview of what major pharmaceutical is about.
We can say that major pharmaceuticals fulfill all the needs that are related to medicine. They research, produce, and distribute drugs, treatments, etc. They work with data, using it to figure out solutions to medical problems for the good of humans.
This industry is so large that it has many specialties that can be considered. With this career path, you have a plethora of options to choose from.
Is Major Pharmaceuticals a Good Career Path?
The big question is, “is major pharmaceutical a good career path?” The straightforward answer is yes! The industry is filled with amazing and mind-blowing opportunities, as long as you have the educational requirements.
The only thing that you might disqualify this career path as being good is your interest and your compatibility with the career. But besides that, all fingers point to it that it is a good career path.
From high demands in the job market, and high pay to job security, there is a lot that makes the major pharmaceutical a good career path.
Benefits of Having a Career in Major Pharmaceuticals
There is a lot in major pharmaceuticals, to begin with, and I will list and explain a few of them here. I hope this benefit seems interesting to you.
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Good pay
One of the reasons many of us take our careers so seriously is because we need to have money. So, the financial reward that comes from a job can be a good reason to choose the job.
There are a lot of high-paying jobs in major pharmaceuticals. The more you grow in knowledge in major pharmaceuticals, the higher you climb the career ladder. And the more you climb the career ladder; you tend to earn money.
Even coming into an entry-level job, you can earn so much with the entry-level job. This is a great advantage for major pharmaceuticals.
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Research Opportunities
If you are someone that gets excited about the opportunities to research and find solutions to problems, major pharmaceuticals might just be the career line you need to consider.
Imagine that there is a deadly disease all over the world, and you are opportune to be among the team of people that are saddled with the responsibility of finding a cure or a vaccine for the disease.
Not many people will find this interesting, but I believe this to be a generally interesting thing about major pharmaceuticals.
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Career satisfaction
There is this gratification that you get, knowing that you are helping a lot of people all over the world get better. This can be an advantage.
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Diverse options
The options available in major pharmaceuticals are so many, giving you a lot of options to choose from. This is the ability that makes major pharmaceuticals a great career line.
Disadvantages of Having a Career in Major Pharmaceuticals
There are several disadvantages that a career in major pharmaceuticals might pose, and you need to consider them also before you make your decision.
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High educational qualifications
Unlike some career paths, major pharmaceutical is very demanding because of their specific and skillful needs. You will need to have some specific degrees, which might take a normal time than usual to bag.
Even coming into entry-level jobs needs a high level of educational qualification. You must be ready to get the right level of education and keep furthering to be better in the career path.
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A lot of responsibilities.
The fact is that working in major pharmaceuticals means that you are ready to put the patients first. Having the health of patients at your heart pushes you to work more and harder. This is a huge responsibility, and you must be aware of that responsibility before you go into the career path.
Reasons Why you Should Decide to Have a Career in Major Pharmaceuticals
You might be wondering why you should ever decide to go for a career in major pharmaceuticals. I will give you pointers that may help you know if it is a good choice for you.
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You can take note of the details.
Detail is important in pharmaceuticals. If you a constituent of a drug is too much, the drug may lead to poisoning. And if a constituent of a drug is not enough, the drug may not work. That is how important taking things to detail matters in major pharmaceuticals.
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If you are interested in the pay
I doubt anyone would say the pay does not matter. If you are looking for a career that is well paying, there are myriads of them in the major pharmaceutical.
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Patience
You must be a person of patience to work in the major pharmaceuticals. The way the industry is structured. Before drugs get to the stage where it is distributed, they would have gone through many processes. A lot of vetting, double-checking, and trials will be done. And all these may go on for years.
So, you must be patient before your work goes out to be beneficial to people. This is especially for people in research.
Best High Paying Jobs in Major Pharmaceuticals
As I said earlier, there are a lot of jobs that can be financially rewarding in major pharmaceuticals. Here are the best among them:
1. Pharmacologist
What pharmacologist does is make new medicine or drugs. To be able to become a pharmacologist, you need a high-level degree, in medicine or pharmacology itself.
They are also involved when the clinical trials of drugs are being done. This is the case for those who have climbed higher in the pharmacology career ladder.
The average annual salary of a pharmacologist is $82,000.
2. Clinical research manager
You can already imagine what the responsibility of a research manager will look like. They are always in charge of the clinical trials that are done on drugs.
They manage the people, ensuring that the right people that are needed are on the team for the research project.
Don’t think because the person is just going to manage and oversee, he/she doesn’t need high educational qualifications. They need a degree in pharmacology. Do you know why?
How will you effectively manage research being done when you don’t even have any idea about what is being done. That is really a huge disadvantage. Hence, the need for them to have a degree in pharmacology.
Their pay is very much encouraging. They are paid about $90,000 on average every year.
3. Pharmacology professor
I am sure to an extent that you are aware of what professors do. They teach students, take part in research, and get research papers published too.
The pay of a pharmacology professor depends on a lot of things which include, the university the professor is teaching, the number of years he has spent teaching in the university, etc.
The average annual salary of a pharmacology professor is $94,000. Note that this varies based on the factors I listed above and others.
4. Medical writer
This job is not just for any random writer. This writer is well versed in medicine. To be specific, in this case, he/she must be a medical writer versed in pharmaceuticals.
These medical writers are well paid because they require a deep knowledge of pharmaceuticals and they are also using the skill which is writing.
The average annual salary of a medical writer is about $104,000.
5. Pharmacoepidemiologist
Their job is post distribution of drugs created. They study and observe the effect the drugs created have on people. The job is a breed of pharmacology and epidemiology – studying how a health condition affects people.
Their duties are to know if the drug really helped. It would not be professional to produce and distribute drugs without proper following on how well the drug is faring on a patient.
6. Pharmacometrician
This job is a breed of pharmacology and mathematics. I know you are wondering where the correlation is. Anyone who is in this role does the job of being in charge of the mathematical metric of any ongoing study.
This does not exclude them from the study of pharmacology. They are meant and expected to be well versed in pharmacology to be a pharmacometrician
7. Clinical research coordinator
As you can see the word “coordinator,” only makes sense when the job is to coordinate or manage things. Yes, this is so for a clinical research coordinator.
To be a good clinical research coordinator, you have to be very knowledgeable in pharmacology. You can’t expect to effectively coordinate research on things you know nothing about.
They coordinate different departments that need to work together to work as a team on a project. And they bring all the pieces of research together.
The average annual salary of a clinical research coordinator is about $52,000.
8. Drug safety scientist
The major work that concerns a drug safety scientist is that a drug is safe to use and that it is used safely. They know drugs well and how they can have side effects or adverse effects on the human body.
They carry out studies on the negative side effect of a drug and place the proper warning on the drugs. That is how you can see on the labeling of a drug warning you about specific side effects of a drug you are about to take.
The average annual salary of a drug safety scientist is about $101,000.
9. Formulation scientist
This job sounds a little interesting, even from the name. Formulation scientists are not limited to working in the pharmaceuticals, but that is where they work mostly. I think I should make that clear first.
What is the responsibility of a formulation scientist? A scientist must be deeply versed in chemistry because their work is to form or create chemical formulas that will be used for products. This is how their job role works in pharmaceuticals. They can also work in other industries, like creating formulas to produce fertilizers, dye, fuel, etc.
This sounds like an interesting job, especially if you love chemistry.
The average annual salary of a formulation scientist is about $83,000.
10. Research scientist
Note that research scientists are not limited to the pharmaceutical industry, alone. Other industries make use of research before production.
In pharmaceuticals, there is a lot of research that goes into the development and then testing of a drug.
The research scientists are the ones who majorly do the research work. They are very skilled and with good memory ability. They are very precise, and they can take note of little details an average person might not take note of. That is one of the things they have imbibed.
The average annual salary of a research scientist is about $84,000.
Now, these are a few out of all the financially rewarding jobs we have in the major pharmaceuticals. There are still more options to choose from. You can dig deeper to see more of the jobs you can be open to if major pharmaceuticals seem to be a good path for you.
Final Thoughts
At this point, I trust you should have made a decision or at the verge of making one about major pharmaceuticals. I just hope that this guide was indeed a great help to you. I wish you the best in your career pursuit.