Prescription for career success: skilled marketing leaders and researchers are making headway in the pharmaceutical industry.

IT'S 8:00 A.M. AND BONNIE MUMFORD, A SALES REP FOR PFIZER Inc., is meeting with a hospital psychiatrist. Next, she makes a few cold calls and has lunch with doctors in her Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island, territory. As friendly reminders of her visit, Mumford leaves behind pens and pads etched with the name of the sole drug she markets, Zoloft, which is the nation's most prescribed anti-depressant. By 7 p.m., Mumford is at an educational symposium on depression, which she helped organize for an audience of psychiatrists. A hectic schedule indeed but real life for a pharmaceutical sales representative.

A summer internship with Merck Inc., during her sophomore year at Florida A & M University School of Business and Industry in Tallahassee, started her on this career path. She joined Pfizer after receiving an M.B.A. in marketing from FAMU in 1993. "I saw pharmaceuticals as the most professional industry for a sales career, where I'd work with experts in the medical community and be trained as an expert in my field."

Mumford, 26, had the foresight to adapt her skills to the needs of the pharmaceutical industry, which is projected to be one of the fastest growing businesses by the next century. Like a fish to water, she quickly proved that she could grow her market by courting managed health care facilities, teaching hospitals and private practice psychiatrists in her territory. And to the victor go the spoils@ For two years running, Mumford has exceeded her annual sales quota of $3 million by at least 25%-30%, becoming Pfizer's No. 1 sales rep for Zoloft.

Despite the presence of Mumford and a few other pathbreakers in the industry, African Americans have not really seized the career opportunities available in the booming pharmaceutical business. According to IMS America, a market research firm, the U.S. pharmaceutical Industry generated $87.9 billion in sales in 1995.

"The goal of most companies is to keep new and better drugs in the pipeline and improve old ones," says Louella Williams, managing director of HR Strategies, an executive search firm in Atlanta specializing in pharmaceutical industry placements. When a company discovers a drug that will generate $100 million a year in sales, it's worth the price of all the failures. As a result, companies Increase hiring in key areas such as human resources, finance, sales and, especially, research."

For most sales reps, like I lofty expense accounts, company cars, base salaries between $40,000-$70,000 and bonuses of up to $30,000 don't come without a price. Meeting stringent quotas in the evolving health care arena can get extremely competitive.

"Managed health care has changed the dynamics of the marketplace, and it becomes even more challenging for reps to sell drugs because there are so many restrictions, admits Mumford. "Many times a doctor may really like the drug I sell, but if that doctor is affiliated with a certain managed care group, my drug may not be on their list."

While perks seduce some to the sales end, there are other careers in the industry just as lucrative. In the last few years, many companies such as Glaxo Inc. and Burroughs Wellcome have merged (now Glaxo Wellcome), and now want individuals with science-related backgrounds to work in the areas of drug discovery and research. These are areas where African Americans have typically been absent, says Williams. "Technology is the basis of all new pharmaceutical jobs. Most of the down-sizing and reengineering that companies did over the years was, in fact, done to make room for more technologically based jobs." African Americans with advanced degrees in science-related fields, she says, can command starting salaries of $45,000-$75,000.

No one knows that better than Monique Carver-Clark. Before graduating from California State University in Hayward with a degree in biology, she had considered becoming a doctor or physical therapist. But a junior-year science research project piqued her interest in biological research.

After graduating in 1982, she joined Genentech, a San Francisco-based biotechnology firm, as a research assistant. Now residing in Durham, North Carolina, Carver-Clark is a regional clinical research associate for the biotechnology firm. "I had been on the developmental side for years, and wanted to work more with the patient and see what happened to drugs on the clinical end," she says. Her job: to work with health care providers as they test new drugs on patients.

Spending at least 30% of her time traveling to various health care facilities throughout the U.S., Carver-Clark acts as a liaison between the pharmaceutical company and physicians. The bulk of her responsibilities include ensuring that clinical drug trials are conducted according to drug company procedures and FDA regulations. Carver-Clark must make sure the data is accurately documented; that information is later assessed to determine if the drug is safe for general release.

"It's a challenging in career and part of the reward is knowing that my work has impacted someone's life," she says. With few African Americans in research and drug discovery, companies are scrambling for blacks with research backgrounds. In fact, Carver-Clark says she receives about five calls a month from recruiters.

Williams points out that health care professionals such as nurses, physician assistants and medical technicians can easily cross over into clinical research. She encourages African Americans to pursue advanced degrees, specifically doctorates in the biological sciences, organic chemistry or pharmacology, in order to move into managerial positions, such as principal scientists in drug discovery or directors of research. In fact, many pharmaceutical companies sponsor doctoral programs with universities across the country and offer scholarships and fellowships for minority students and employees.