Holly Smith
Professional Placement Year at Merck, Sharpe and Dohme (MSD)
Holly Smith
Throughout my time in Newcastle, I realised that I didn’t like lab work, the long and quiet hours in the same room just wasn’t for me. That’s why I looked to the pharmaceutical industry, where I thought I could neatly couple my interest in science with business and people.
My first experience of the pharmaceutical industry was a placement year at Pfizer where I worked within their regional commercial operations team. This experience was a joy, I was able to meet new friends, learn about the role of pharma and the massive diversity of jobs within just one company. I was also lucky enough to go on several business trips around Europe including Prague, Madrid, Istanbul, Berlin and Malta- those were the days!
After graduating I secured a sales and marketing graduate scheme at MSD UK, which was an amazing opportunity to learn about the UK pharmaceutical business. I spent one year working in the national Diabetes marketing team, where I imputed into marketing plans and coordinated the development and delivery of those plans- such as designing email campaigns and presence at important conferences. I then rotated to become a sales manager in oncology, back in the North East for a year. In this role I met with lung oncologists and their teams across the area to increase awareness of a medicine and educate them on its best use in order to grow sales.
After this experience, I secured a permanent role with MSD UK within their Corporate Affairs team. I spent a year managing their social media channels, launching both organic and paid campaigns to raise awareness of MSD UK as an employer and several disease awareness campaigns.
For the last 3 years I have worked across Policy and Communications, where I have found my passion. It’s a huge shame that access to healthcare and subsequently health outcomes across the country vary. I focus mostly on public health issues, aiming to influence policymakers and work with the national systems to provide fair and equal access to medicines and vaccines.
Please please consider getting industry experience in you field of interest! I genuinely don’t believe that I would be where I am today without my experience as a placement student. To have real experience, understand the workplace and know areas of interest when applying to graduate schemes really helped set myself apart from other candidates. You should 100% do it!