The very common notion of any student who has just stepped out the boundaries of school, is to select a career which assures a secured job for their future. No matter what is their subject preference, the job prospective of that course is always the primary question asked to any academic counsellors. Among thousands of courses of this present time, it has been surveyed that the pharmaceutical course is being considered as the most popular course amongst the budding talents, not only in India but also around the world.  One of the major reasons behind this can be attributed to the tremendous development of job opportunities provided to the aspiring pharmacy professionalsin India. The highly skilled and trained pharmacy graduates can explore the different fieldright from drug designing, research and development, manufacturing, to finally marketing the drug and finally dispensing the drugs in hospital and clinical pharmacy.

A booming area of career prospect is the Contract Research Organizations (CROs) which have opened up new avenues for job seeking pharmacy graduates. The job opportunities for the pharmacy professional in the CRO industry have witnessed an exponential growth in India.  The most highlighted sectors of CRO include Pharmacovigilance, Regulatory Affairs, Clinical Data Management, Medical Writing, Medical Coding, Statistical Analysis and many more. These highly decorative roles demand not only skills but also a great depth of knowledge about the subject. One of the specific department of CROs, which remains unheard or less unapproached to a job seeking candidate is the business development team which discovers an unparalleled path towards enhancement of career.

In this blog, I would like to give an insight of the Business Operation team that can be considered by an aspirant pharmacy graduate as a pillar for success in their career.

What are CROs?

Contract Research Organizations, better known as CROs, are the companies that carry out the research services of pharmaceutical, biotechnological and medical devices industries, on a contract basis. The CROs thus bridges the gap between the companies who are developing new drugs or medical devices and the market by providing services like biopharmaceutical development, commercialization, planning and execution of preclinical and clinical trials and pharmacovigilance.

The job roles at the CROs may vary, mainly due to the different categories of CROs. For an instance, the clinical CROs are more oriented towards the delivery of clinical research services, on the other hand the niche CROs are more focussed on a specific phase of clinical trial or deliver their services in a definite therapeutical areas such as oncology, or diabetes. The remaining bigger CROs covers a wide range of services spanning the entire process of drug development.

Thus, as a job seeker there are multiple options within the CRO industry and all of them is highly fulfilling owing to the multiple opportunities leading to a rapid progression in your career graph. 

Let us now focus on the prime component of this blog:

Business Operation Team

For any CROs to carry out their operations, the primary objective is to collaborate with the sponsor company. The Business Operations team are the front liner that establishes collaborations with the sponsor thereby accomplishing the business for CRO industry. 

What are the roles of Business Operation Team?

• The business operation team, often known as the proposal team, are deemed to strategically plan the whole model of clinical trials involving different stakeholders to structure from front end to back end of clinical trial.
• The model system incorporates budget development along with designing timelines in each of the services namely protocol writing, site start- up initiation, patient enrolment specifications, active treatment modules, data management, pharmacovigilance, biostatistics and medical writing.
• The whole proposal is then passed to the relevant sponsor (pharmaceutical, biotechnological or medical devices companies).
• If the sponsor finds the proposal affordable and falling in line with their requirements, they “award” the proposal, or in other words, the sponsor hires the CRO to carry out their clinical services.
• Following to this the actual operational work begins often technically termed as the actual or live clinical trials.
• The proposal team is headed by a proposal manager, who along with the whole team prepares the whole model or proposal generally within a timeline of 10- 15 days.
• In a nutshell, it is the proposal team, who plays the crucial role of negotiating with the sponsor company with the budget of the clinical trial and thus are responsible for the providing the actual “business” to the CRO industry.

What are the minimum requirements for applying to the Business Operation Team? 

The business operation team mainly seeks candidates that fall in either of the following criteria:

• Masters in Pharmacy (Pharmacology/ Pharmaceutics)
• Bachelors in Pharmacy with an additional degree in Masters in Business administration.

Before you jump into any conclusion of selecting this particular role for your career, ask yourself the following questions:

• Are you ready to join the healthcare services?
• Do you want to develop your skills and pursue advancements in drug development process?
• Are you passionate about being the front faces of the CROs?
• Are you eager to collaborate and exchange your knowledge with people around the world?

If you find all your answers as “Yes”, then just go for it, be an invaluable part of the global CRO industry and make your own success story.