By Sally Hill, 31 March 2025
If I told you I was a scientific writer who writes non-clinical study reports, would you know what I mean? I suspect that many in-house language professionals have jobs we’d never heard of in school when considering careers; jobs that are so niche you roll into them without noticing after working elsewhere. For me this involved working first as a genetics researcher, then as a biology teacher, and finally as a freelance medical translator, manuscript editor and lecturer in scientific writing.
These days I work at a small Dutch biotechnology company where my work helps to get cancer drugs approved for use in patients. Most of my day-to-day work involves talking with scientists about their results, then putting a story about their data down on paper as clearly and accurately as possible in what’s called a non-clinical study report. But I’m also involved in answering questions from regulatory bodies relating to reports I’ve written; in writing manuscripts; in organizing internal speakers for monthly research overviews; I’m helping develop a company-wide style sheet; and I’m in an IT workgroup that’s testing Microsoft Copilot (ever heard of large language models and AI tools? anyone?).
What’s a non-clinical study report?
Non-clinical study reports are technical reports that biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies and contract research organizations (CROs) use to document the results of their experiments – some experiments are done in cell culture in the lab, and others in animal models. These experiments – and the accompanying reports – are needed in the pre-clinical phase of drug development to persuade regulators that the drug is safe and effective before testing starts on humans in clinical trials.
I’ve recently started to give a three-hour workshop on non-clinical study reports as part of the professional development programme of the European Medical Writers Association (EMWA), together with another writer whom I met through EMWA. But I don’t consider myself an expert. While I’ve been writing study reports for ten years, I’ve not been able to find any external training or resources on how to write these reports.
Want something done? Do it yourself!
I went to my first EMWA conference back in 2021 and I was looking forward to getting some training in my particular niche of ‘medical writing’. But all of the sessions were related either to medical communications or to clinical trials. None of the talks or workshops were about non-clinical studies, and certainly not about how to write reports on them. After hearing about my disappointment, a long-time member suggested I simply give a workshop myself, and gave me the name of someone to contact who might be able to help.
Luckily the other writer had some experience in giving EMWA workshops and in writing non-clinical study reports, so a new EMWA workshop was born. Imposter syndrome – yes that familiar beast – keeps on raising its ugly head, but it’s quieter than it used to be.
Lessons learnt
So while I should long be past the stage of deciding what I want to be when I grow up, I think I might actually finally know: a scientific writer! This job and my volunteering for EMWA (and SENSE) have brought together my loves of science, language and knowledge-sharing. If any of you talk to teenagers wondering what subjects to choose or what career path to follow, just tell them to stick with what they enjoy. After all, if you enjoy something, you’re more likely to succeed at it. It’s worked for me anyway.
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Blog post by: Sally Hill |
