Where Have All the R&D Jobs Gone?
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Over the past three years, more than 90,000 pharmaceutical employees have been layed off. While many of these former employees were drug reps, a majority who lost their jobs were R&D scientists. If drug makers have already jettisioned tens of thousands of R&D jobs, how is the next generation of medicines going to be discovered and developed? Like it or not, pharmaceutical and biotechnology R&D is beginning to be outsourced—much like information technology (IT) was in the late 1990s. And, like the IT industry much of R&D is being outsourced to countries like India and China. This should not be surprising because for the past 20 years or so, most of the people receiving PhDs in the life sciences were foreign nationals—many of whom were unable to stay in the US because of post-9/11 immigration policies and visa quotas. Without many options, many had no choice but to return to their home countries to seek employment and in some at contract research organizations (CROs) that specialize in pharmaceutical and biotechnology R&D.
According to a recent article written by J B Gupta Senior Vice President Collaborative Research GVK Biosciences Pvt. Ltd. India, for the last five years or so, Indian CROs like GVK Biosciences, Aurigene, Syngene, Advinus, Jubilant, Suven Life Sciences, Sai Lab, Accunova, iGate etc. have been positioning themselves as purveyors of R&D services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. These efforts have apparently paid off! Companies like Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Forrest Laboratories, Eli Lilly & Co, Johnson & Johnson, Merck Serono, Wyeth, Bristol Myers Squibb and others have entered into strategic R&D partnerships with many of India’s leading CROs.
A recent study by the Kauffman Foundation suggests that India better positioned and ahead of China in R&D outsourcing. Further, the pace at which discovery collaborations are being established in India suggests that the western pharmaceutical industry is looking to Indian CROs not only to cut costs but to innovate as well.
Unfortunately, while this doesn’t bode well for American scientists, the US has nobody to blame but itself. Wrong-headed immigration policies coupled with inadequate training for life scientists who want to pursue industrial careers are largely responsible for the current R&D outsourcing activities. Like IT, I suspect that outsourcing will work for some companies but not others. Nevertheless, I think that outsourcing is here to stay and like it or not American life scientists will have no choice but to adapt to the “new normal.”
Until next time...
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (try India or China)
Interesting Article. My firm - C-DRIVE, runs a specialist Online Life Science Career Platform (www.cdrivejobs.com) in collaboration with ABLE (Association for Biotechnology Led Enterprises), to facilitate the growth of the Indian Life Science sector, and 'returning indians' from across the globe. Do look us up.
Cheers!
Shyam Suryanarayanan
I would like to say that the Indian community is putting indeed a lot of efforts into R&D and many of the selling companies in US and outside originally manufacture in India or have a branch there too.
This is a subject I have been thinking about a lot myself, since I am one of those R&D scientists currently looking for a job in the US. Of course, I have been aware of the trends in outsourcing, but I have been trying to remain positive and thinking (hoping/praying?) that some research must remain here, if nothing else but for I.P. and convenience/time zone reasons.
Put tariffs on outsourcing. I don't support removing job opportunities in my own country. I especially don't support cheap slave labor in other countries.