While many areas in healthcare are out of balance, with demand being higher than supply, some areas of biotechnology, have remained favorably constant over time, says Frank Heasley, PhD, President and CEO, MedZilla.com, a leading Internet recruitment and professional community that targets jobseekers and HR professionals in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, healthcare and science.
Dr. Heasley sees continued employment growth for people who are clinical researchers, statisticians, as well as people with experience in quality control, quality assurance and regulatory affairs.
The biotech arena as a whole is very attractive, says Karen Fulmer, vice president, Bench International, an executive search firm specializing in the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors primarily at executive levels. Bench International was ranked this year by Executive Recruiter News as fourth in the top search firms in Los Angeles County and 29th in the country.
I think there are a lot of job opportunities in the industry overall. The reason I say that is that we are continuing to see the shrinkage of the major pharmaceutical sector, with major mergers like that between Pfizer and Pharmacia. What that probably will end up doing is stimulating further interest in biotechnology for people leaving the pharmaceutical sector, as well as possibly expanded opportunities within biotechnology, she says.
The Wall Street slump and shaky market is putting pressure on companies to show product, Fulmer says. So, positions in such areas as product development, regulatory affairs (which is always very popular), and your R&D positions, where there is an actual development effort going on in the organization, are probably going to be a little more popular, she says. The companies that have a little more on the development side in the business are really where the more attractive jobs are. I would say that''s probably a trend.
Regulatory affairs will always be a hot area and will continue to be so, Fulmer says. Positions that have grown in popularity among employers are those that are on the more pre-development or early development stages. A lot of companies-especially biotech--are really in a situation where they have to ask questions earlier in the process. The buzz is to use the kill experiment in the process and usually what that involves is people who typically have more of a development background and are getting much more involved with research, very early on. That''s an attractive trend that''s really starting to surface, Fulmer says. People who have historically spent a lot of time in later stage development are not getting exposed to a bit more of the exploratory side of the business. Companies are looking for people who are open to that and wanting to get involved in those kinds of activities.
Keith Hall, director of employment at Cambridge, Mass. based-Biogen, which has just under 2,500 employees worldwide, says that Biogen is one of the few biotech companies that engages in exploratory activities and therefore hires people in the areas of early stage discovery through to manufacturing. We have a hot current need for medicinal chemists, generally people with master''s degrees. [We need people in] positions, like medicinal chemists, who help us move product from pre-clinical into clinical development, who are primarily PhD level scientists in molecular biology, he says.
Biogen, with its strong manufacturing capacity and capability is seeking candidates who are in involved in pharmaceutical sciences and technology, including chemists or chemical engineers. These are the people who help translate formula and products from the lab into reproducible product that can be made, Hall says. We''re always on the look out for MDs, pharmDs and PhDs in what we call medical affairs. Those positions tend to report through the commercial organization as opposed to the research and development group. They help translate clinical data, the science behind our products and key clinical endpoints of our products. And they work with key opinion leaders in the marketplace.
According to Hall, another hot area at Biogen is in the information technology group. Biogen and other companies are investing heavily into new systems to support their infrastructures and need IT people.
Hall''s advice to candidates is to work on their cross functional experience. That means that research and development people have to have an understanding of the commercial world-that the benefit of drugs and new therapies that are discovered and developed in the lab can only reach patients and address unmet medical needs when they''re approved by the FDA and are able to be sold. Then, we want manufacturing and commercial people who have an understanding of good science and medicine, he says.
We have found that there is a complex relationship between demand on the employer''s side, and candidates'' experience, talent and skill levels. Even though a field may not be hot, if that is where your true talents lie, there will be positions available and you will excel. Similarly, if you are not top notch, or your talents are not well suited for the position, you will not ultimately be successful even in a hot field. Dr. Heasley says.
Biotech careers: What''s hot and why
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