Dr. Robert Bagdorf, vice president of worldwide business development in biopharmaceuticals search and evaluation at Pfizer, spoke in Hackerman Hall on Monday about marketing in the pharmaceutical industry.
The American Marketing Association (AMA) sponsored the event, which focused on how pharmaceutical companies develop a product from research to marketing, as well as provided tips for students interested in landing a job in the pharmaceutical business industry.
Bagdorf graduated from Hopkins in 1982 and was happy to come back for the event.
“I love continuing to be a member of the Hopkins community,” he said.
Bagdorf detailed the steps his company takes to get a product to market from identifying a need for a specific type of treatment to surveying the competitive landscape and scouting researchers who are working on developing new medical treatments.
One part of his job involves talking to researchers from universities like Hopkins who are conducting pharmaceutical research. He said that about 64 percent of the pharmaceutical products that Pfizer sells were sourced from external researchers hailing from universities and federally funded labs.
“I hadn’t known a lot about the different divisions that Pfizer runs and their whole process before,” AMA member Liz Moriarty said. “[It’s] definitely worthwhile to learn about other industries and their marketing and companies that aren’t initially [associated with] marketing.”
Bagdorf, who holds both a doctorate in medicine and a master’s degree in business administration, helped students like senior Anjali Ramaswamy consider non-traditional career opportunities in medicine.
“It was very unique to get his perspective because the life science business development scene is very niche,” Ramaswamy, a molecular and cellular biology major, said. “This tied a lot into my work now and in the work that I want to do in the future.”
While many members of the audience were either on the pre-med track or were science majors, others attended the event to learn more about how to get insight into the pharmaceutical industry without extensive scientific background.
“The most interesting thing about this talk was [learning about] how they look at the markets for the medications and that there’s a lot more to the pharmaceuticals than what you see in the commercials,” senior Winston Chang, an International Studies major, said.
Bagdorf, who also has experience recruiting for Pfizer, also gave the audience tips on how to ace an interview. This part of his presentation included actual Pfizer interview questions.
Furthermore, Bagdorf talked about his unconventional path from Hopkins to Pfizer. Bagdorf ran a private practice in neurology before earning his business degree and landing a job at Pfizer.
“[Before being] in my current role at Pfizer, I didn’t even know this type of job existed,” he said. “I wish I had somebody come to Hopkins [when I was a student] and told me the different possibilities of what a career in medicine could provide.”
Although the AMA has tried to bring in speakers who represent many different aspects of marketing, this was the first event focused on pharmaceutical marketing.
The AMA readily chose Bagdorf as the first pharmaceutical marketing speaker in part because he is the father of the AMA’s Vice President of Programming, Liz Bagdorf.
“Because of Hopkins and the medical focus that we have, it seemed like a perfect fit,” Liz Bagdorf said. “We really wanted to expand the diversity of our events to appeal to the rest of Hopkins. It’s great that we got the connection with my dad to show that you could do more with your pre-med degree than simply becoming a doctor.”
The AMA hopes to continue to bring in diverse speakers that engage both students interested in marketing as well as students with other areas of interest, especially science majors and students on the pre-med track.
It was great to see people that I haven’t seen [at AMA events] before,” Bagdorf said.
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