Role Eye-Opener

In our June issue of Pharmaceutical Executive, we feature a little bit of everything. Whether it’s our flagship annual Pharma 50 rankings and report, now in its 25th year (find out how the world’s top drugmakers stack up this time around and check out the special accompanying data spread); our cover story on the entrepreneurial journey of Real Chemistry founder and chairman Jim Weiss, the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association 2025 Honorable Mentor; or the refreshing take from guest author Christine Miller, CEO of Melinta Therapeutics, on creating paths to purposeful change within your organization.

Not lost in the shuffle is a fun and honest piece, I thought, in an inside baseball type of way, on what contributing authors Pete Vaccaro and Amy Heath, managing partners at Formulary Insights, argue is “undoubtedly” the hardest job in biopharma. I’ll give it away here: it’s vice president of market access, in their opinion; but I encourage you to explore the feature for an interesting “day in the life,” detailing, in breezy fashion, the role’s uniquely pressure-cooked and delicate balancing act.

“It's about aligning internal strategies with external realities—external realities that often change without warning and at a frequency likely not experienced by other biopharma executive roles,” the authors write.

They make a good case, but of course, there are dozens, if not a bunch more, positions of similar ilk that many would beg to differ on holding the “hardest job” mantle in pharma. That’s the beauty of this industry: there are lessons everywhere.

Thanks for reading.

Mike Hennessy Jr. is Chairman and CEO of MJH Life Sciences