Joining private companies for Biotech-Pharma R&D sector in India.
B. B. Goel
Sunday, 28 June 2009 17:18 UTC
It seems to be a problem for many PhD and postdocs to decide whether to join public research institutes or private ones. Once they decide and get suitable opportunity to join a private research institute the first problem they face is to determine how much they worth. In whole life they did research and never did self-evaluation from monetary point o view. One thing we must make clear that there is absolutely no rational and honest criteria for anything in a company. Two candidates having same academic achievements and background can have vastly different salary and parks. It mainly boils down to candidate’s own negotiation skill and showing symptoms of desperation to get a job (as perceived by the prospective employer). The first question they face during a HR interview (once they are selected as a potential candidate by scientific/research body of that institute) how much they except as salary. This is a very tricky question and very tough to answer, particularly for those who is looking a job for his/her first employment in a private organization. The general trend is to say, for example, “about 7 lakhs per annum”. By the time company asks this question, they have fairly good idea about the upper limit they can offer. If the asking salary, by the candidate is below the company limit (mostly it is) they accept after some usual (cosmetic) rhetoric (which also reduces the salary for the candidate) and pressure to join as early as possible as if the Company will stop functioning if the candidate does not join soon (which is mostly false but nonetheless very effective to put pressure on the candidate). Extra benefits depend on the difference between asking salary and company’s expected upper limit. Now the next and most widely used trap, the “cost-to-company” (CTC) concept. In academics we have no such concept and so when a company says that your CTC will be X lakhhs then we tend to think that is my net salary (without tax of course). So when you join and get your first salary, you get surprised. Before actual joining, it’s almost impossible to make the HR people admit, in writing, the actuall take-home salary (considering the all legitimate govt taxes and other minimum deductions, as per company law). After the first salary, the candidate start exploring why the actual take-home salary is so low. Now they start understanding the greatness of terms like “productivity linked incentive (PLI)”, “deduction under chapter VIA”, “choice pay” etc. It’ll be less stressful in future if the candidate accepts that PLI will never be given to his/her in some pretext or other. That amount varies depending on company, your negotiated CTC and many other factors. In general it varies from 7-15% of CTC. Actual calculation for PLI is deliberately kept very vague and complicated and with too many variables (which is beyond your own performance and control). It will be better to accept that you will never get that part of the salary. Now “choice pay” part, another tricky business. Before joining it seems that we will get all that part of your proposed CTC. But soon after joining you realize that it’s not the case. Financial benefits and other parks are very well defined in public institutes and we can get a fairly good idea about our actual take-home salary there.
Companies mainly think that once you join the company it will be very tough for you to change or to go back to US/Europe or other countries. They highly exploit that situation. Majority HR will insist that you join first and everything will be OK then. For an average postdoc in US, it’s very hard to waste about $ 10-15 K during relocation and initial settlement in any metro city in India. Financially many of them cannot afford to come back, even if they do not like to continue that job (although some do just that and that trend is increasing as well). Some out of compulsion and rest out of fear, many publicly praise their new job, exaggerate their salaries among his/her friends. Sometimes it’s very tough to get actual salary scale by talking to acquaintances and friends. Private employers just love that aspect. They encourage it (even sometimes in writing) so that candidates do not discuss their salaries and parks among themselves.
Now let’s come to intellectual property rights. Many of us wrongly think that whatever we accomplish in a private company belongs to the company. Probably it’s not right. It’s only the business and financial “right” that belongs to company but the company has the legal obligation to give the candidate due “academic” credit (e.g while filing patents). They almost force the candidate to sign a very lengthy document which most of the candidates will not read but sign, to avoid such complications and deprive the candidate his/her legal rights.
It seems that majority of the candidates working in Indian private companies in R&D will not get the opportunity to come back to basic research and academics after working in such private R&D sector in India. Firstly they will not be much productive so far research is concerned, in terms of publications and novel, usable patents. In other words they have to stick to same type of work during rest of his/her life. Scientifically it’s very boring and frustrating, if they really like to do research. In most of the cases the family life of the candidates will be ruined, particularly if they prefer to join a company where Saturday is a working day. Just like many other Indian companies (both in IT and other sectors), you are expected to stay till late into the night if your boss stays, even though you may not have any work, but to keep up with others in pleasing the higher management. This is very important for the company to measure your “productivity”, as they perceive. Once you climb the hierarchy you feel more pressure for such acts, more meetings after 7pm and during weekends/holidays. It is more problematic for women, as we can understand.
But if played properly, there is a huge scope to earn money, a lot of that, particularly for few who are street-smart and have a flare of public speaking and some managerial skill.
Let’s hear some other thoughts and opinions.
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Anonymous
I would like to answer to this comment by Goel.
“One thing I realized that higher education in a foreign/developed country cannot change the core value of a person. I was emphasizing “foreign return” as many in India think that foreign degree is synonymous to knowledge, character and honesty, which is clearly not true. This image was shrewdly cultivated over the ages and strengthens by our colonial past. Many foreign degree holders manage to climb hierarchy just for their degrees; not for knowledge, honesty or ability. This trend needs to be changed.”Generally, there is a trend amongst Indians (I will write category wise).
1. PhD in India and never worked abroad but got a position in some institute.
We are the best. We worked against all problems and got PhD. Those who escaped to abroad were after money. Working abroad doesn’t really make you a better scientist but in India does as at the end of the day you have to work in India. They tend to ridicule every Indian who has inhaled foreign air.2. PhD in India and Postdoc abroad.
We are the rarest and best breed of India. Those who could not get PhD seat in India ran away to abroad so they are less capable than us. Those who never traveled outside India are incapable. We know how to work in India and also abroad. Eventhough this category will demand respect for their Postdoc work abroad but they will fail to accept that those who did PhD abroad have also worked in the similar environment!!Above two categories come with an additional advantage to boast and that is they have lots of contacts in India. After all our trend is you scratch my back and I will scratch yours. They both feel people with degrees from abroad when try to return are failed ones in their respective fields!!!
3. PhD and Postdoc outside.
They think they can do much better research as they have worked outside for their degrees and Postdoc(g)ing. Those who remained in India are incapable and those who came out for Postdoc are arrogant. We deserve more respect and salary.Why can’t we leave it besides us and respect everyone? Everyone is doing science in their own best capabilities and afterall we have opted for research as we enjoy it. First five years should be temp and after that on the basis of performance people should get permanent positions. There are people who did Postdoc with big shots and published every paper in Nature but once they start in their own labs they end up getting 100% rejections from Nature type journals and fail to publish anything decent. Do we need to judge them from their Postdoc publications??
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Yes you are right. We should respect a person on his/her own merit, not by degree, not by citizenship and so on. That’s ideal. But generally people do not always adhere to that. For example, if I say that I am coming from Bihar/UP, most of the people in India will assume some specific characteristics about me. My default parameter is set. The same is true for Indians abroad, or Indians coming to India after staying in a developed country. Peoples’ perception about that country, about that society is imposed on that person as default.
What you said about PhD degree holder or person with Postdoc experience abroad is true. But at the same time people in India have their own perception about the quality of Indian PhD, about Indian Postdoc and also about Indian faculties. Their own experiences guide them to have that opinion. Students who have done PhD, then postdoc and then achieved faculty position in India should not start thinking that they are more patriotic, more intelligent and so on. If we want to establish Indian degrees, Indian experience with decent reputation in the world and more importantly in India itself, we need to reduce corruption during faculty appointment, provide decent education and demand originality while awarding PhD.
If you see an average CV of an Indian candidate applying for postdoc abroad, you will think that candidate is great; so many awards, so many publications, knows so many techniques and so on. Once that candidate start working as postdoc in your lab, you will quickly realize that s/he knows almost nothing, can not troubleshoot even technical questions unless reported somewhere, can not do almost anything without daily or weekly supervision. Moreover can not ask relevant scientific questions, mostly remains busy with technical details and micro-management of research. As a result, after few years of postdoc experience with few first author papers in some high impact journals s/he can not do much “research” by himself/herself, cannot publish in high impact journals being a faculty in India. Simply because s/he was used only as hands during his/her postdoc tenure in US or Europe or other countries. His/her main achievement to advertise becomes his/her foreign degree/experience.
Whatever you suggested is right. But to make that a practical reality India must improve its own quality of education and research. -
Anonymous
I agree and was appalled by most of the application forms including Ramalingaswami fellowships. They have a column for impact factor of publications and cumulative impact factor in last five years. I am sure board will sit and arrange all the applications according to impact factor and select the top 100 for interviews or something like that.
Same goes for other applications.. guidelines (unofficial, as evident from the comments of highest awarded Indian scientists present in this forum) say you should have impact factor of 5 or higher during your Postdoc. Does that mean scientists producing papers in current science (or less than that) are not capable at all? They should be sacked right now (This will be great as it will generate positions for everyone present in west and satisfy those who care for impact factors).
If a person working in Agriculture science and developed a nice tilling instrument (published in some agriculture journal with if of 2.0 and instrument is used by everyone in India and Africa) applies along with a person worked under the able guidance of a Laurette (with paper in nature).. Who should get the fellowship? How will they know whether the impact factor reported was obtained as a 10th author in Nature. Who is better a person with if 2.0 as a first author or if 31.0 as a 10th author?
Selection board should spend some time in reading papers, recommendations, research proposal and finally interview or scientific discussion rather than depending on how many nature papers a person has published so far. They should never give permanent position to a candidate but review his/her progress at the end of five years. Provide appropriate funds for research and nothing beyond that.
Stop measuring intelligence by numbers (impact factors and their addition-subtractions), country of PhD and Postdoc obtained, state of origin, religion, skin colour, language spoken, level of english known (almost all Japanese scientists will fail in India for their poor english) and research area.
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Anonymous
Hi all, quite an interesting discussion to join, however the first and last comment by topic of discussion are way apart! Anyways, I agree with almost all the comments – but is there anyone who would hear? I mean, only a bunch of guys regularly visiting this site with some rationale and inclination to do research are commenting. Is there any chance, whatsoever small may be, to get the Indian Science Biggies to even read this forum? All the students, PhD scholars, postdocs, stratup scientists and even some midcareer scientists are not happy – be it private or public. There is so much of frustration and lingering going on. Most visible are the awards – which have ‘God only knows’ reasons for the awardees ability and less visible are the project sanctions. When and how this would ever be changed? I would specially call for CSIR, which boasts itself for the largest publically funded industrial R&D organisation in the world, with 4,555 scientists (Gr IV) alongwith 7,009 Research Fellows or associates (working students basically) in 2005-2006 (according to 2006-2007 annual report) has produced a mere 3,488 scientific articles (i.e, less than one paper per scientist per year, or like one paper per student in 2 years!), not to mention a whopping 1,710 crores as financial plan (again, in other words, Rs. 49 Lakhs per paper of IF 1.98 per year!). (Pun: looks like an AirIndia fleet in the world of Air Industry!). I am sure, rest is self-explanatory.
regards -
I appreciate such efforts to bring real facts in public, mostly among tomorrow’s scientists and some establish scientists who visit this forum regularly. Some established scientists visit this forum do indicate that they are willing to share their thoughts, to listen, and may try to change themselves or the “system” in whatever small ways they can. I am not much optimistic about changing anything in Indian system by discussing issues within closed doors, with people who are responsible to bring us at this stage in the first place. This is true for our general society and political system as well. Sustainable change can only take place when general people; general students and researchers in this case, realize the problems of present system, understand the positive aspects of it as well and loudly demand (not request) necessary changes. It have to come through mutual respect, wide discussion/debate and lastly by the dream to do something meaningful for the country, society and the world. Moreover, once common people, general researchers understand the problem of mediocrity in the higher positions, it will be almost impossible to put the genie back in the bottle. Many of us vow to oppose corruption, blame the “system” when they perceive themselves as victim; but quickly change side once they attain some power (as a faculty or a policy maker) and join the same people s/he once opposed. This future possibility and fear of reprisal prevent many of us to raise their voices against corruption. Any change in the system need to be sustainable and that comes only from demand from common people, when accountability is made transparent.
I know it’s a pretty big dream, but some of us do and all of us should do it once they decide to take research as career. It’s the ideal. If you make a minute fraction of such a dream a reality, I personally will think that our “wastage” of time and effort in this forum and other forums is worth pursuing.
I do not care if CSIR or ICAR or ICMR or or DBT or DST listen or read what we are discussing here. I will be more happy if general science students, general PhD and postdocs participate in our discussion more. -
Most of the time Indian science organizations are infected with the same disease as Indian judiciary, politics, bureaucracy and many other democratic institutions. We ruined almost all of it. It will never make sense to change only science and research while leaving all other aspects of Indian society intact. It never happened to any country in the world and will never happen to India either.
My intension is to make people aware of what they can expect before joining a private R&D sector in India and how best they can prepare themselves to face the reality. Many of the technical problems others and I mentioned in this thread are well applicable to public research institutes as well. But monetary problems and rampant cheating of its own employees are not there in public institutes.
It’s a reality that almost no one join private R&D sector if s/he is serious about real research. For many reasons private R&D units are not interested to do ground breaking research. That’s left to public funded institutes almost all over the world. Particularly in India, private R&D units are not scientifically and technically capable to do that either.
There are many reasons a person consider joining private R&D. I do not know which one comes first: financial benefits or lack of opportunity in challenging academic research (mainly in India). Many might think that if I have to do the same boring work, same imitation of others’ work, then why should I not earn a little more.
It helps a lot if you know what is actually expected from you and what your personal target is, in the long run- when you join any organization. There is a huge difference what your employer tells you and what they actually want. Most of the time they can not officially admit what they really want, but if you understand and can read between lines, it may help you a lot in your career (whatever that means to you). -
This is an interesting discussion, indeed. But I think too much whining going on. So I’ll begin with a Japanese joke.
In Japan there are 3 types of surgeon doctors:
A) Surgeons who are good doctors and like to do operations.
B) Surgeons who are bad doctors and do not like to do operations.
C) Surgeons who are bad doctors but like to do operations.
As you understand, type A and B does not pose any danger, but for obvious reasons it is the type C who are most dangerous. Similar things can be said about scientists. Bad scientists with burning desire to do science always finds faults in the system…be industry or be it academia. And many of these ‘type C’ scientists suffer from ‘obsessive compulsive disorder’ and they never give up scientific career. -
Nice joke. The Indian version of the joke has two more categories (Japanese can not imagine it, I think):
Type-D: Good doctors but not allowed to do operations.
Type-E: Not even doctors but successfully do operations, and got lots of award for that. -
Anonymous
Type F: Not even doctors but allowed to perform operations (remember a civil service officer allowed to PhD at AIIMS when he had no back ground in forensics at all).
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The current trend is that there is a decline in the PG biotech. If the same trend continues, there will be no biotech course in the days to come.
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