Medical Affairs and Clinical Strategy
The scientific conscience of a commercial organisation.
- Best fit
- Clinicians who enjoy literature appraisal, teaching, and speaking to specialist audiences.
- Time to move
- 3 to 9 months of focused search
- Indicative pay
- 170k to 300k USD depending on stage and scope
Medical affairs teams own the evidence story: what the product can claim, what the studies actually showed, and how clinicians are engaged without turning into a sales channel. In healthtech the function is smaller and broader than in pharma, and it often includes clinical strategy, guideline mapping and publication planning. It is the most common first industry role for clinicians who like reading papers and talking to peers.
What the job actually is
- Own the evidence dossier the commercial team is allowed to quote
- Design and shepherd real world evidence studies
- Build and hold the clinical advisory board
- Review every claim before it reaches a customer
Skills to build
- Evidence hierarchy and study design at a level you can defend in a room
- Regulatory promotional boundaries
- Publication planning and abstract cycles
- Clear slide craft for non clinical executives
Your first ninety days
- Write a short evidence review of a category you know well and publish it
- Sit on one clinical advisory board, even unpaid
- Get fluent in the two or three trials every buyer in that category cites
Proof of work hiring managers ask for
- A published review, abstract or poster from the last 18 months
- A talk given to a non clinical audience
- An advisory role with a named company
Titles and who hires
Common titles: Medical Director, Medical Science Liaison, Clinical Strategy Lead, VP Clinical.
Typical employers: Series B and later healthtech, Diagnostics companies, Digital therapeutics, Payers.
| Role | Level | Indicative band |
|---|---|---|
| Medical Science Liaison | Entry | 150k to 210k USD |
| Medical Director | Mid to senior | 220k to 320k USD |
Key signals
- Medical affairs hires on judgement, so the interview is usually a live appraisal of a weak study.
- The role is your licence to say no inside a commercial company, which is exactly why it exists.
- It travels well: the skills transfer across diagnostics, devices and software.
