Building a medical affairs team from scratch? Start here.

"First, set up your culture... then you can bring people." That's the hard-won advice of Anabel de la Garza, MD, PhD, a BCMAS-certified medical director who has gone from working inside and leading established medical affairs teams to building ones from the ground up. She joins ACMA’s Will Soliman, CEO, on the ACMA Medical Affairs x MSL Power Play Series for a candid, practical look at how to design, staff, and scale a medical affairs function that earns a real seat at the table.

On the agenda:

• The core roles every new medical affairs team needs, from MSLs and HEOR to scientific communications and digital health

• Where medical affairs should report, and why it matters

• How to build trust with R&D, commercial and regulatory affairs

• Staying objective and compliant inside a for-profit company

• The KPIs that actually show medical affairs is working

You'll find out:

• The startling stat about chief medical officers and MSLs from ACMA's early days

• The most overlooked role in medical affairs, according to a live audience poll

• Who your very first medical affairs hire should be, and what to look for in the interview

• Why the people skills MSLs are hired for still get overlooked

• How to make the case to leadership when no one understands what medical affairs does

• Whether MSLs should be doing double duty as medical information, and where AI fits in

• The MSL story Will uses to show why consistency matters as you scale

If you're a medical affairs leader at a startup or growing biotech, an MSL ready to help build something new, or a pharmacist, PhD, or MD breaking into the pharmaceutical industry, this episode is your blueprint for building medical affairs the right way.

Hit Follow on the ACMA Medical Affairs x MSL Power Play Series, and send this episode to anyone building a medical team.

Exclusive listener offer: Get 30% OFF ACMA's premier Medical Science Liaison board certification programs, the Board Certified Medical Affairs Specialist (BCMAS) and the Medical Science Liaison Board Certified Biologics and Biosimilars Specialist (BCBBS), rated #1 by Industry Insiders. Use code PODCAST30 at medicalaffairsspecialist.org

Follow Will Soliman on:

• LinkedIn

• willsoliman.com

Follow the Accreditation Council for Medical Affairs (ACMA)

• LinkedIn

• Medical Affairs Specialist

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