Physicians play a crucial role in the successful development of new diagnostic and therapeutic drug. The leading role of physicians is that they have high-level responsibility for the evaluation of safety and efficacy of a new potential drug and also for the safe performance of the clinical studies. For various research and developments of new drugs, physicians also work for various clinical research organizations (CROs) and biopharmaceutical companies. Therefore, they are known as pharmaceutical physicians. The physicians involved in the drug development process usually advises the safety monitoring of drugs, registration, and evaluation of the drugs, medical research, pharmaceutical product development, and marketing of medicines among patients. The inputs of these pharmaceutical physicians are not only limited to medical aspects but also covers ethical aspects and business responsibilities as well. The role of physicians in the drug development and also in the pharmaceutical companies has undergone a transformational change. Many external changes in the pharmaceutical industry like safety surveillance and regulatory conditions shows the importance of doctors in the drug development.

Role of physicians in drug development:

Doctors lead and advise on the development of new treatments, establishes pharmaceutical products, and areas of unmet medical need. This includes advising on the medical aspects of:

•  Registration
•  Evaluation
•  Research
•  Development
•  Safety monitoring
• Also the marketing of medicines

The physician can also use his/her clinical expertise for the following functions:

• Provides medical information about the therapeutic drugs that includes all the knowledge about the drug including the patients as well as other healthcare professionals.
• Providing product training to the sales representatives and other marketing colleagues.
• Creating a database of scientific information by compiling the specific information gathered from the literature.
• Reviewing the promotional material that includes evaluation of the training materials and scientific content of promotional materials.

Physicians role in drug safety:

The study of serious adverse events (SAEs) and drug safety is known as pharmacovigilance, and nowadays it is one of the most important topics within the pharmaceutical industries. Therefore the role of drug safety physician is the evaluation of safety information and also the addition of the initiatives of various clinical research physicians handling the research and development plans focused on efficient measurements.