A survey of medical scientific liaisons in the pharmaceutical industry in Spain

This report presents the findings of an online 38-item survey on the emerging role of medical scientific liaison in the pharmaceutical industry in Spain. A total of 44 complete surveys were received, the majority from large companies with more than 20 medical scientific liaisons. All medical scientific liaisons were primarily responsible for establishing and maintaining relationships with key opinion leaders. Forty-one percent of the respondents said that they did not have a formal technical training program, and more than half of the participants responded that there was no promotion ladder in their company. Some challenges cited by the respondents pertain to their difficulties over how they demark their roles with sales/marketing department and communicate the medical scientific liaison value to business partners. These findings can be used to identify areas for improvement and compare medical scientific liaison practices to those in the future.