A Hematologist/Oncologist Transitions With Research Experience and His Specialty Training
Global Medical Head, CAR-T Therapy @ Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson
Jordan has worked in the pharmaceutical industry since 2013. He is an Adult Hematologist/Oncologist who trained at Columbia University for both his residency in Internal Medicine and his fellowship in hematology and adult oncology. After fellowship he stayed at Columbia on faculty where he spent 50% of his time in research on the topic of multiple myeloma and 50% on clinical care of patients.
Given his background in multiple myeloma and hematology/oncology, he was recruited to Janssen Research and Development to work on the daratumumab program. This is a monoclonal antibody for the treatment of multiple myeloma. When he was recruited, this drug was just starting phase 3 clinical trials and clearly fit well with both his clinical and research interests. Over the course of his career at Janssen, he has taken on more responsibility and became the global clinical co-leader of the daratumumab program. He is now the global clinical leader for the company’s investigational CAR-T program in multiple myeloma. With this increasing responsibility he has several direct reports in the USA, Europe, and China that are physicians and scientists.
(CAR-T stands for Chimeric Antigen Receptor-T cell)
speaking of acronyms…
Jordan has sage advice for physicians interested in the pharma/biotech industry:
“Ask lots of questions and learn the acronyms!
It’s like a new language when you first start”
(For commonly used acronyms in our industry see my blog post: Pharmaceutical Alphabet Soup)
When I asked Jordan about what he enjoyed about working in industry he spoke about contributing to the development of new therapies for patients with cancer. In clinical practice he had a panel of ~100 patients, 50 of which he saw regularly. Now,
“there are literally tens of thousands of patients who are benefiting from the work we are doing in industry. It’s all very gratifying and speaks to the reason I became a doctor”.
His work in clinical development means that every week is a bit different. Some of the responsibilities he has include writing protocols and reviewing clinical trial data. Other weeks (when we are not dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic) he travels to academic hospitals to meet with investigators that are involved in the conduct of the clinical trials. In his role, he typically travels ~25% of the time, both domestic and international.
In addition to clinical trial responsibilities he meets with health authorities (i.e., The FDA, EMA, PMDA, etc.) to discuss proposed studies and development plans. In addition, his team has the opportunity to attend global and regional conferences to highlight the latest clinical data and learn about new developments in the field.
What about his experience transitioning to pharma? Jordan felt his training and experience with clinical research allowed him to transition easily and contribute from day 1. For clinical research, I agree with his experience – coming with a background and several years of academic experience in clinical research is great.
However, there are also plenty of roles for MDs where clinical research experience is not required!
In closing, Jordan’s advice for those that are new to industry is to find a mentor because there is a steep learning curve.