William Kim is a science communicator currently working at Pharmacyclics, an AbbVie Company, as a Senior Manager of Medical Publishing. He has a wide breadth of industry experience ranging from basic bench Scientist positions studying reprogramming biology to medical writing and publication planning across multiple therapeutic areas such as medical dermatology, cardiology, and oncology. His passion for science writing and communication stems from the impactful mentorship he received from his PhD advisor Dr. Gay Crooks while at UCLA. 

Can you describe your academic and professional background? What path led you to pursue this field? 

I received my PhD in Cellular and Molecular Pathology from the University of California, Los Angeles where I studied early hematopoietic development from a cell signaling perspective using human embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells. It was during my time at UCLA that my mentor, Dr. Gay Crooks, profoundly inspired and encouraged me as a science communicator. Her intentionality and thoughtfulness to involve me on numerous RO1 and PO1 grants, as well as numerous other writing opportunities, her consistent and helpful feedback, and her unparalleled passion, scientific rigor, and grantsmanship left an indelible mark on me as a scientist and as a writer.  

After a short stay in my graduate lab as a postdoc, I landed my first industry position with Fate Therapeutics where I had the opportunity to help lay the groundwork for their iPSC/immunotherapy product platform. I then transitioned to Fujifilm Irvine Scientific where I led the development and launch of several chemically-defined cell culture media. Though my job function primarily involved experiment planning and execution, opportunities presented itself to further explore the writing aspect of science in an industry setting, allowing me to become the department’s lead writer and editor for product/marketing materials and peer-reviewed publications. It was during this time that I began to seriously explore medical writing and publications as a career option.

After concluding my time at Irvine Scientific, I made my leap into medical writing as a Senior Medical Writer with Allergan, focusing on pre- and post-market studies across multiple therapeutic areas within their broader medical dermatology and aesthetics portfolios. Prior to my current role with Abbvie and in a desire to broaden my exposure within publications, I transitioned to Edwards Lifesciences where I served as Manager, Scientific Communications, leading publication and data generation strategy development for transcatether tricuspid valve therapies.

How did you find this particular position, and what was the hiring process like? Is there a typical structure for this in your field? 

I found my current position through networking via linkedin. I started by activating the free one-month trial offer to unlock the unlimited messaging feature and started messaging people for informational interviews. At the same time, I actively searched for open positions on linkedin to help me target the people I wanted to reach out to. One person I ended up connecting with, who was a mutual connection with a former boss of mine, turned out to be the hiring manager for my current role. We got on a quick 30-min informational interview which led to my contact info being forwarded to HR. This then led to a phone interview with the HR recruiter which led to a virtual in-person interview with several members of the team until I got hired.

Can you tell us about your current responsibilities? What is a typical day or week like in your role?

Publications (abstracts, posters, presentations, and manuscripts) are an integral component of a medical device or pharmaceutical company’s overall strategy for communicating important research findings to the broader medical and scientific community. Multiple internal departments (clinical, regulatory, medical affairs, biostats, etc), as well as external collaborators (health care professionals, key opinion leaders, etc), play a direct role throughout the lifecycle of a publication project. As a subject matter expert and publication lead, it is my responsibility to work with these stakeholders during data generation and analysis up through conference or journal submission. For example, a manuscript begins with an official data request for specific tables, figures, and associated stats analyses from the biostats team. I work closely with the cross-functional team to establish what data is needed as well as the timeline we need everything cleaned and ready by. Physicians who played a key role in running the study are then engaged to review the data and discuss the direction of the paper. Once all the authors are on board, I initiate and manage several medical writing vendors for drafting of the publication. Once a draft is written up, the paper undergoes several rounds of review steps involving both internal and external reviewers until it receives final approval for submission. All this involves regular meetings, phone calls, and emails to coordinate the many moving parts and ensure timelines are met. Time management, multi-tasking, and prompt communication are absolutely key as there are usually multiple publications at different stages happening in parallel.

What do you enjoy about your current job and work environment? 

Working in a team setting with multiple people contributing toward a unified goal as opposed to flying solo, so-to-speak. Also, the seemingly limitless opportunities to grow and learn within my therapeutic area, the regulatory landscape, publication policy, etc.

Do you have any professional plans for the future? What are some future career paths that could open up for someone in your position, 5-10 years down the road?

The awesome thing about industry, especially pharma and med device, is that most projects tend to be cross-functional where you get to rub shoulders with people across different departments and functions. This lends the opportunity to learn about different roles that you never knew existed and presents potential new paths you can take as you develop in your career. Starting out as medical writer at Allergan, I had only a rudimentary understanding of what medical publications entails, let alone how pharma operates and is organized, in general. After getting to better understand my role and where/how it fit within the broader organization, I realized that I was more interested in the strategic aspect of publications, which primarily falls under the publications manager role, which aligns pretty closely with the medical writer role in terms of scope and deliverables. Also, it seems that most pharma and med device companies are open to internal transfers into different roles/functions and even encourage employees to seek out and arrange shadowing opportunities to further their personal career development goals.

What activities, internships, or organizations would you recommend someone get involved with to help them break into this field?

Two absolutely critical approaches are personal research and networking – job hunting is like a part-time job in and of itself in terms of the time and investment involved, and the more you put into it, the better your chances will be of landing your first industry position. Here are several resources I have found to be incredibly helpful for me throughout my career journey:

1) LinkedIn is probably the best one-stop-shop resource out there for doing personal research as well as networking. Not only can you search for job openings and set automatic alerts, but you can use it to look up peoples’ profiles based on keyword searches, eg, medical writing, cell culture, etc. For example, I’ve used the latter function to see how people describe their roles and to get better familiarized with the lingo/jargon you tend to find in job descriptions on a job posting. I’ve also used it to get a general sense of the career progression one can expect for specific roles that I was interested in – where it can lead, how many years one tends to stay in the role/company, what other directions people branch into, etc. Lastly, and I can’t stress this enough, the best and most useful aspect of LinkedIn is the ability to network with people directly to request informational interviews. Though it’s true that many people are busy and likely will not reply back, it’s all a numbers game, and the connections you do make can make all the difference. Also, even if the connection/informational interview doesn’t directly lead to a job, you will find yourself better informed and better prepared when submitting a job application and going through the interview process that follows.

2) The UCSF Office of Career and Professional Development website (https://career.ucsf.edu/phds/basic-biomedical-sciences) provides amazing academic and non-academic career resources. I’ve personally benefitted from the sample resumes and cover letters that they provide for people interested in applying for industry positions. They even provide a list of job boards as well as interviewing tips, among a host of other great tidbits.

3) For those who are interested in learning more about medical writing and medical publications, I would highly recommend they check out the American Medical Writers Association (https://www.amwa.org) and the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (https://www.ismpp.org).

4) Thankfully, it seems that more and more universities are realizing the need for better equipping graduate students and postdocs for alternative career options outside of academia. For example, the USC Pharmaceutical Industry Fellowship program (https://pharmacyschool.usc.edu/programs/fellowship) partners with several notable pharmaceutical companies in Southern California and is open to anyone with a terminal degree (PharmD, MD, PhD, etc.) and within five years of initial appointment. Additionally, the UCI-GPS STEM (https://gps.bio.uci.edu) program offers numerous resources, including a mini-course on the basics of medical writing (https://gps.bio.uci.edu/basics-of-medical-writing-for-phd-students-postdocs) which I had the honor of codeveloping with the program director, Harinder Singh, who has done a tremendous amount of work to expand the depth and breadth of the program to include a wide range of topics and career paths.

Is it common for people in your field to have a scientific/academic background (i.e. have PhDs)? Can you think of any advantages or disadvantages someone with a PhD might experience while pursuing or working in your field?

Most, but not all, tend to have a terminal degree, especially PhDs and PharmDs. There are many advantages to bringing a PhD background into medical writing and medical publications as there are many relevant and transferable skill sets developed during graduate and postdoc training. For example, rigorous data analysis and interpretation, presenting and communicating your work to different audiences, performing literature searches, writing manuscripts, just to name a few!

Do you have any final words of advice for those navigating these career questions? Is there anything you would have done differently given what you know now?  

A list of some important things to keep in mind:

1) Finding a job takes time and effort – treat it like a second job.

2) Make sure you tailor your resume and cover letter to match the job description as much as possible.

3) Try to apply to the job opening as soon as you can, don’t sit on it and get to it several weeks down the road – the first set of applications to arrive are likely to get the most attention from HR.

4) Take time to create/update/polish your LinkedIn profile and maximize its tools and features.

5) Network, network, network – informational interviews are an invaluable resource.

6) Job interviews generally are to assess your teachability and how well you will fit with the group rather than just your knowledge and technical skills/abilities.

7) Don’t let yourself get discouraged, stay positive and hopeful, your perseverance will pay off – I applied to 50+ companies before landing my first industry job, mainly because I had no idea what I was doing (like how to write a resume) and had to learn things the hard way.

8) Start the process as early as you can, even if are still a couple years out from graduating, you’ll thank yourself later that you did.

9) Lastly, never forget where you came from or those who’ve helped you along the way and always be willing to extend a hand to the next person in line – sacrificing humility for ambition is to have lost far more than you think you’ve gained.