Medical Affairs
The function that bridges R&D and commercial, owning scientific exchange, KOL engagement, and MSL activity.
Medical affairs is the function that sits between a pharma company's R&D and commercial organizations, responsible for non-promotional scientific exchange: answering unsolicited medical questions, running KOL engagement, publishing clinical data, and overseeing the MSL field team. Unlike commercial, medical affairs isn't trying to sell anything, which is precisely why it's allowed to have conversations commercial can't.
That separation is a real compliance line, not just an org chart detail. An MSL can discuss off-label data in response to an unsolicited question from a physician in a way a sales rep never could, because the interaction is scientific exchange rather than promotion. Content and materials built for medical affairs use get reviewed differently from promotional assets as a result, and conflating the two functions is one of the more consequential mistakes a brand team can make.