If the job is more desk work related such as a statistician, bioinformatics, ect, a clinical background is not required. I believe a clinical background is necessary if you are are going to directly deal with patients.A principle investigator and clinical research associate should require a clinical background since these jobs entail dealing directly with patients. The clinical background does not have to necessarily be research related. It can also include working as a medical assistant, EMT, and ect. The important thing is that the job involved patient interaction. Even if the job you had involved working with teammates, patient experience is extremely important. It is different dealing with people on a team than patients who are about to undergo some type of treatment. Thats why for the patients sake,clinical background is necessary .