Why I Built PharmaLink Academy: What 18 Years Inside Pharma Showed Me

I never planned to build a training academy. I built one because of a job advert I posted in my own consultancy, and the 200 applications that came back. This is the longer version of how I came to do this work, the standard I held teams to before I did, the student who still makes me smile when I think of her, and the skill the pharmaceutical industry quietly rewards that almost no one tells you about.

The job advert that became PharmaLink Academy

A few years ago I posted an advert for a regulatory medical writing role at my own consultancy. I already had two writers. I needed one more, possibly two. I was not looking for someone fully made; I was open to a candidate with a little foundational knowledge whom I could shape myself. That openness mattered to what happened next.

Two hundred applications landed. I expected a lot. I did not expect a lot of the same thing.

I never got most of them as far as an interview, and the reason was the CVs. They were almost interchangeable. Heavy on education and academic qualifications. Heavy on lists of the tasks they did in their current NHS or clinical roles. Heavy on NHS jargon that no industry hiring manager I have ever sat next to would parse without help. I sat with stack after stack and could not connect what these healthcare professionals were doing on paper to how they would fit into the regulated work my consultancy actually does. The hunger was there, separately. Many of them emailed me directly, willing to learn, eager, articulate about why they wanted in. But the CV was screaming something completely different.

That was the moment. I had been mentoring people quietly for years before that, through LinkedIn DMs that turned into months of guidance, but I had been doing it one at a time. Looking at 200 CVs that all made the same mistake told me the gap was not personal. It was structural. There was no proper establishment showing healthcare professionals how to translate themselves for the industry I work in, and there needed to be. I started PharmaLink Academy not from a plan, but from that pile of CVs.

The standard I held teams to at Global Head of Pharmacovigilance level

Long before any of this, I was running pharmacovigilance teams at Global Head level. The standard I held those teams to is the same standard I hold learners to now, and it is worth naming, because it is what the industry actually expects of you once you are in.

Every member of my team understood the regulations they worked under. They understood the timelines and respected them. They respected our internal procedures and the regulatory nuances behind each one. And, most importantly, they were proactive. If a scenario happened, they did not wait to escalate. They jumped into action. They knew what needed to be done and what needed to be documented. They always gave the justification for the call they had made.

What I gave them, in turn, was oversight, not intervention. They kept me informed. They did not need me to step in. That distinction is everything. Proactive, forward-thinking, innovative, and even when things did not go to plan, they kept moving and they kept me looped in. That is the standard. Anyone who has worked in regulated industry will recognise it. People who have not yet, often think the standard is about ticking boxes accurately. The standard is about being trusted with a brief.

The student I will always remember

Of every healthcare professional I have hired or trained, there is one I think about most often. A physician associate. Young, no industry experience yet, but absolutely clued in from the first session. The hunger was visible. The drive was visible. She picked things up quickly, and every time one of her assignments arrived I would smile before I had even opened it, because by then I knew what was coming. She did not coast on her previous good work; she built on it. She landed her first industry role within 8 weeks of finishing.

What made the difference was not raw talent. Many people have that. What made the difference was that she was absolutely determined to move out of the NHS. She took feedback the way someone takes a gift. She wanted to learn. That combination, drive plus humility about being trained, is the most reliable predictor I know of who will thrive in this industry. It is also the easiest thing to spot from across a room, and the hardest thing to put on a CV.

The skill the industry rewards that almost no one teaches

Here is the one most underestimated thing I have seen, across both my hiring side and my training side. It is the difference between having a skill set and knowing how to position it.

If you have the skills that map to a role, wonderful, you will slot in. That gets you in the door. But the move from where you slot in to senior, principal, director, chief executive level, is not based on skill. The skills get you the entry seat. After that, every promotion is decided by strategy and positioning. People confuse the two, and it is why so many capable people get stuck in the same role for years longer than they should.

This is a game of chess, not checkers. Checkers rewards the next move. Chess rewards being four moves ahead of where you currently sit, with a plan for which pieces matter and which ones do not. Most healthcare professionals enter the industry playing checkers, because that is how the NHS rewards them. Industry, particularly at the senior end, rewards chess. Learning the distinction early is one of the highest-leverage things you can do, and it is the part of this work I most enjoy teaching, because the moment a student sees it, the rest of their career changes shape.

Why I let my students shape how I train

The training itself, I let my students shape. Constantly. I ask them, after every cohort, what worked and what did not. The best way I have ever found to know whether something is landing is to ask the people you are providing it to.

The mistake other trainers make, I think, is treating feedback that names a weakness as a verdict. It is not. It is information. If a student tells me a particular session did not land, that does not mean we failed. It means we are willing to learn, to grow and to be better at this next time. So I take the feedback, I redesign the part that did not work, I test it on the next cohort, and I watch. That iteration is how every part of what we now do got to where it is. The 200-case PV model, the marking standard, the live cohort structure: every piece of it has been shaped, at some point, by a student telling me that something could be better.

If I were starting again in 2026

People ask me, fairly often, what I would do differently if I were starting my pharma career today. The honest answer is two things, in equal measure.

The first is the practical, hands-on experience. That part has not changed. The work is regulated and precise, and you cannot fake it. You have to build the documents and process the cases and do the work, until your hands know it.

The second is the part I would do better. I would learn how to position and strategise from day one, not after a few years in. I would know which pieces on the board mattered for where I wanted to be in 10 years, and I would move with that in mind. Skill plus positioning, in that order, with neither one missing, is how you reach the level you actually want, in the timeframe you actually want. That is what I now teach. It is also, in many ways, the book I would have wanted to read when I started.

Dorothy Ogwuru is the founder of PharmaLink Academy. She has spent 18 years in pharmacovigilance and regulatory medical writing, including at Global Head of Pharmacovigilance level and as a Senior Regulatory Medical Writer. If you would like to talk through where you are now and where you could be in this industry, book a fit call and she will give you a plain read. The honest filter for whether the move is right for you sits at Is a Pharma Career Right for You, and the myths that hold capable people back are unpacked at Breaking Into Pharma: The Myths That Hold Healthcare Professionals Back.