Landing industry fellowships

Katie Brinn is one of at least four members of the Class of 2020 who have landed prestigious industry fellowships.

“I always wanted to integrate my business background with my pharmacy education and experience,” said Brinn, who was awarded a Bayer Business Development and Licensing Fellowship through the Rutgers Institute for Pharmaceutical Industry Fellowships. “So, I sought after fellowship opportunities that fit this mold and provided professional development opportunities within the industry.”

Other MUSC pharmacy students landing fellowships include:

• Lyndsey Milburn, Amgen partnership with Rutgers Pharmaceutical Industry Fellowship Program (Thousand Oaks, California).
• Meghan White, Sanofi Pasteur partnership with Rutgers Pharmaceutical Industry Fellowship Program (Swiftwater, Pennsylvania).
• Ian Mulrenin, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy/PPD, Inc. (Chapel Hill/Morrisville, North Carolina).

Brinn graduated from North Carolina State University with a business degree in human resources and a minor in biological sciences. She worked for years as a pharmacy intern at Rite Aid and Encompass Health. Recently she worked as an intern at MUSC’s investigational drug services, which solidified her interest in pursuing the pharmaceutical industry post pharmacy school. 

As a fellow, she’ll identify opportunities for business development, provide scientific and medical information to evaluate their attractiveness, collaborate with other teams in due diligence assessments, and work with senior members of the business development and licensing team.

“I’ll be working cross-functionally at Bayer and gaining hands-on experience in search and evaluation and negotiations,” Brinn said. “I am really excited to cultivate relationships with business development and licensing executives with more than 20 years of experience."

This area of growing interest has led the college to develop curricular and extracurricular resources that provide a path into industry, such as starting an MUSC chapter of the Industry Pharmacists Organization and offering an industry elective featuring alumni and other guest speakers that introduces key concepts like:

• Drug development.
• Regulatory compliance and the FDA.
• Early clinical testing.
• Drug approval process.
• Sales and marketing.

It also introduces career concepts like medical communications, medical science liaison, and how to make yourself a strong industry candidate.

“The elective course really exposes you to different elements of industry and gives you that background knowledge to see if you want to go further,” Brinn said.