Thom Rowland

"It's most definitely a career with a purpose," says Thom Rowland of his job at Marietta, Ga.-based Solvay Pharmaceuticals, where he's vice president of US commercial operations for Solvay's gastroenterology and women's health product lines.

Since joining Solvay five years ago, Rowland moved up from product manager for a single drug, Luvox, to business director of gastroenterology marketing, to the position he holds today, overseeing about 290 employees.

That trajectory took commitment, focus, and lots of elbow grease. "I'd say this is a 60-hour a week job, not including the mental time I'm burning on the weekends," comments the 39-year-old father of four. "And there's quite a bit of travel, because of the global nature of our industry now-the days of developing a drug for the US market are pretty much over."

Some outside the industry may view bench scientists and clinical trial researchers as the heart of drug development, with marketing and sales simply serving the company's bottom line. Nothing could be further from the truth, Rowland says.

"In the end, we're very involved in helping patients receive the best treatment possible," he explains. Marketers typically step into that process during Phase II trials, "exploring a specific clinical application. Marketing gets involved to really highlight the R&D side, asking 'What's the unmet medical need?'"

Once a drug is ready to launch, marketers like Rowland step in again to formulate clear, concise messages aimed at "all stakeholders--patients, doctors, pharmacists," helping them understand pharmaceutical benefits while minimizing potential risks.

"There's just so much data out there in the medical community that it's really almost impossible for individual physicians to keep up," he adds. "Part of our job is to improve the efficiency of that scientific information so they can make the best medical decisions."

While Rowland's job doesn't touch directly on the Food and Drug Administration approvals process, he points out that marketing does play a large role in the increasingly important and complex post-approval regulatory process, "providing strategies such as risk management to our regulatory departments."

All of this means juggling many responsibilities at once, guiding any number of new medicines through various stages of development. According to Rowland, savvy marketers will need to be good salespeople, market analysts, long-term strategists, and--most importantly--leaders.

"You really need to convince people that strategies will work, and that the message is right," he says. Having an insider's view of different aspects of the industry, including the clinical side, can be a big asset, Rowland notes.

"For instance, during my time here at Solvay, I also worked part-time in one of my assignments as a clinical project manager." "That's really helped me now, on a daily basis."

In the end, Rowland says, marketers are full, creative partners in an endeavor everyone can be proud of. "The number-one thing that I love about this job is the knowledge that we are helping patients by bringing out unique products that meet unique medical needs."

-- E.J. Mundell