It's the pipeline, stupid
Paul Smaglik
Wednesday, 18 June 2008 22:32 UTC
Jobs are getting tighter in biotech and pharma, according to a recent article in Chemical & Engineering News. And the industry scene may worsen, with cutbacks and consolidations in a troubled economy. This week GSK announced would cut 350 R&D jobs—about 2 percent of its global research staff. This is worrying, because when pharma firms announce downsizing, they usually spin the bad news to say that marketing, management and administration will bear the brunt.
However, all is not doom and gloom in drug discovery. The C&E News piece mentions that Genentech, Millenium Pharmaceuticals and Takeda Pharmaceuticals are all hiring. And the article cautions industry jobseekers to look at prospective employers’ pipelines before applying. As always, the more candidates a company has in more clinical trial phases makes for a better chance of finding an open slot. Companies with only one compound in early-stage or pre-clinical work present more risk.
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Replies
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One thing to keep in mind as we see the numbers of layoffs as well as projections in hiring is the type of positions being effected. To say that they are R&D jobs is a very broad classification of the skill levels/background of those involved. To expand – not all jobs witihn an R&D group are bench research style positions. Depending on the structure of the group you likely also have QC/QA, possibly technical writers, Chem. I, II, III, Scientists, Management, Process, etc. So, depending on the job type you are looking for these numbers may not mean much. That is the hard part.
I will agree that looking at the pipeline maybe important, however, they won’t hire you unless they need you.
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