The life of a MSL will vary over time and consist of many activities that are often driven by a product’s lifecycle and what management wants to focus on. We grouped some of the tasks in the graphic above to make it readable – as there are many more activities to account for. The graphic shows how these activities change from pre-launch to post-launch. Although we know that MSLs often work more than 40 hours per week, we normalized the data to present an average profile of each activity and how they translate to hours per week.

In pre-launch mode, an MSL will spend around 45% (approx. 18 hours) of his/her time meeting with thought leaders and managed-care organizations, present to groups and attend events. These activities will increase slightly in post-launch mode, to almost 50% of an MSL’s time.

Many functions other than medical affairs professionals still question what MSLs really bring to the table – basically not understanding the value of the MSL role (please share this with everyone!). It is good then to look at the other activities an MSL does. They collect competitive intelligence; they support trials through developing protocols, evaluating sites and facilitating ISTs, and P4 trials; they assist the development of promotional and scientific materials and documentation and help out with medical publications; they participate in advisory boards; they train speakers, new MSLs and assist the commercial side of things whenever possible. Valuable activities. The question now becomes what would we do without them!

Note that these time metrics are averages and they will vary by company, region, team and individual MSL. Therefore we suggest you take these has “headlines” to compare your own schedule or use them as guides to set up a new team. In any case, we hope you benefit from these benchmarks.

This graphic was generated from aggregate global results from the following studies:

The Medical Science Liaison Function: Insights on the Management and Operations of Medical Field Teams

U.S.: https://www.arxresearch.com/reports/us-msls/
Europe: https://www.arxresearch.com/reports/european-msls/
Asia-Pacific: https://www.arxresearch.com/reports/asia-pacific-msls/
LatAm: https://www.arxresearch.com/reports/latin-america-msls-key-operational-metrics/

The life of a MSL.