Alcon Announces Plans to Expand Its Workforce In Texas
Despite a stalling economy, there are signs that some American companies are hiring and helping to improve local economies. A good of example of this is Alcon Laboratories located in Fort Worth, Texas. The company, which specializes in vision products, today announced that it leased 87,000 sq. feet of office space to house 400 new employees that it is moving into the Fort Worth area.
The company immediately needed the space to accommodate employees relocating from Atlanta and to house new hires as the company plans to expand existing facilities in south Fort Worth. Alcon was acquired this past April by Novartis, which operate the Atlanta-based CIBA Vision and Novartis Ophthalmic Units which are being consolidated into Alcon’s existing Forth Worth operations. While some of Novartis’ Atlanta employees lost their jobs as a result of the Alcon acquisition, many of them are relocating to new jobs at the Forth Worth facility.
Alcon notified Fort Worth city officials that it plans on expanding its current workforce of 3,200 to about 4,000 and spends millions of dollars to expand existing facilities over the next few years. Ironically, while most big US pharmaceutical companies are slashing domestic jobs and investing in emerging markets like China and India, Novartis, a Swiss company, is investing in America! Go figure!!!!!!!
Until next time...
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!
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Last week, US unemployment dipped to 8.6%, it lowest level since 2008. Stock markets rose and everyone was buoyed by a possible economic recovery. What a difference one week can make. Today, Astra Zeneca announced that it will layoff 1,150 sales reps; a few short weeks after announcing plans to eliminate 400 jobs at is US headquarters in Wilmington, DE. The company currently employs about 61,000 workers worldwide, including 14, 000 in North America..jpg)
Despite the fact the US unemployment rate has hovered around 9.0 percent for the past several years and over 200,000 pharmaceutical employees have lost their jobs since 2001, many (1).jpg)
While China and India have gotten the most attention as emerging pharmaceutical markets, Latin American markets most notably Mexico and Brazil (okay, it is a South American country but it can be included in Latin America) have been quietly expanding as rapidly as the Indian and Chinese markets. To wit, Denmark-based, Novo Nordisk—the world’s largest insulin maker—
I received a heads-up from the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) Sergio Lewis about a free webinar entitled “How to Secure and Nurture a Vibrant Chemistry Career in the 21st Century.” The webinar is scheduled for December 1, 2011 from 2:00-3:00 PM and will be led by Brian Fahie, PhD from Eli Lilly & Co. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session..jpg)
After completing the $6.8 billion purchase of Pennsylvania-based Cephalon, Teva, the world’s largest generic drug manufacturer
The New Jersey Governors Office 
Fewer and fewer American college students are choosing to major in Science Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). This has been an ongoing trend in the US for the past two decades. However, within the STEM majors, the life sciences are faring the best. While I believe that the US needs more life sciences majors to remain competitive with the rest of the world, there are a (1).jpg)
Despite a lull in layoffs over the past summer, this fall is shaping up to another bad one for pharmaceutical employees. Late last week Novartis announced that it was laying off about 2,000 employees. Prior to the Novartis announcement, .jpg)
It seems that big pharma always waits for early Fall to announce pending job cuts. Novartis, Europe’s second largest pharmaceutical company, (1).jpg)
I just returned from the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) meeting in Washington DC where I gave three talks about biocareer development strategies. One of the talks, "Emerging Job Opportunities in the Life Sciences Industry" was reported on (see below) by a writer from Fierce Pharma. While I don't usually "too my own horn." about my achievements, I thought a Number 2 ranking in the publications daily top 10 list was certainly worth a mention. 
While LinkedIn is not considered by many to be a “true” social networking site (some consider it to be little more than a place to post an electronic resume), it is increasingly becoming the place to go to look for or find a job. Most recruiters and many hiring managers used LinkedIn to source qualified candidates for job open at their organizations. That said a well-thought-out and carefully written LinkedIn profile can make the difference between employment or not..png)
Last week .png)
Remember when Amgen was the world’s largest and most profitable biotechnology company? That was way back in 2006 before its marketing and sales team got in trouble for “pushing” the sale of its erythropoietin (EPO) product Epogen and Aranesp beyond acceptable patient safety limits. This, along with a relatively thin new drug pipeline, has for the past five years or so relegated the company to second tier biotech company status.
Times are tough for many in the legal profession these days. However, the demand for patent experts including attorneys and patent agents is skyrocketing. According to an 
Astra Zeneca today announced that it will eliminate 400 positions at the company’s Wilmington, DE headquarters. Most of the cuts will be in sales and marketing and the downsizing is intended “streamline portions of its commercial business to best serve patients in the US.”
From 2001 to present, roughly 300,000 pharmaceutical employees have lost their jobs. That is a massive number; second only to the job losses in the automotive and financial services industries. The main reasons for the layoffs have been a lack of return on investment on R&D activities and impending patent cliffs in 2013 for as many as 15 blockbuster drugs. 
After a relatively quiet summer, big pharma companies are beginning to ramp up layoffs once again..jpg)
Abbott Laboratories today .png)
For the past decade or so, I have been suggesting to life sciences graduate students and postdoctoral scientists that their career options were becoming less limited and that it was good idea to begin to consider so-called alternate career options. Unfortunately, the information that I was providing these individuals was largely based on anecdotal evidence rather than rigorous scientific analysis.
Despite the fact that no new jobs were added to the US economy in August, things were pretty quiet in the pharmaceutical layoff space. From what I was able to find, it appears that 
Unlike many of its big pharma competitors which are shuttering US manufacturing facilities, MedImmune, the biologics division of London-based pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, Friday, .jpg)
Merck & Co.'s 
Layoffs at big pharma tend to slow during the summer as most people are on vacation and nobody wants to fire folks when the kids are out of school. However, the failing economy has prompted several companies to abandon tradition and fire people during the summer anyway.
As I mentioned in numerous previous posts, health or healthcare informatics is one of the hottest and .png)
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The Pharmalot Blog today 
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I recently wrote an article that discusses nontraditional career options for PhD life scientists and ideas about how more jobs can be created for these individuals in the the life sciences industry. The article entitled 
It had to happen sooner or later and it did. There are now apps that jobseekers can download to their Apple and Android smartphones to prepare for job interviews. Gadget-savvy, Bob Tedeschi wrote a 
Merck & Co, which yesterday completed its $430 million acquisition of Inspire Pharmaceuticals, 
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I am not a big fan of top ten lists but I decided to take a look at the list compiled by Cecilia Capuzzi Simon in a recent article that appeared in the April 13, 2011 New Times Education supplement. Entitled
While R&D scientists and sales representatives continue to struggle to find jobs in the US at pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, the competition is fierce to hire and retain pharma employees in emerging markets like China and India. Earlier this week, I posted a piece on big pharma’s continuing expansion of its R&D activities in Asia and the growing need for US-trained PhDs in this region. However, it appears that hiring and retaining pharma sales reps is a bigger problem in China and India for big pharma companies like GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Sanofi-Aventis (SA) and Pfizer.(1).jpg)
Mathew Herper, who writes at the Forbes Blog, .jpg)
Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis 
The French drug maker Sanofi-Aventis continues to 
The Japanese drug maker Eisai, Co 
About a month ago, BioJobBlog in association with the JobJob Health Job Board launched the .png)
Medtronic one of the world’s largest medical devices manufacturer earlier this week announced that it will .jpg)
Little is published in the blogosphere about the life sciences industry in Canada. Because of this, many people think that Canadian scientists and other bioprofessionals may have fared better than their US counterparts. However, like the US, thousands of scientists and others have lost jobs throughout Canada during the almost three year global recession.
Ask any pharmaceutical industry pundits about the “next big thing” in life sciences R&D and most will invariably say neuroscience indications like Alzheimer's, Parkinson Disease and the like. Curiously, despite these prognostications, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) .jpg)
Many industry insiders and financial analysts were pleased when former Pfizer CEO Jeffrey Kindler abruptly departed the company last December. Most felt that the company had grown too large after three mega-mergers and acquisitions (Warner Lambert, Pharmacia and most recently Wyeth) in the past decade or so. Pfizer bought Wyeth in late 2009 for $67 billion with the hope that it bolster the company’s drug development pipeline and replace vanishing Lipitor revenue (the move has not paid off which may explain Kindler unexpected departure).
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According to a 
Believe it or not, employment opportunities are looking better in the life sciences industry. While this may be good news for some, the need for R&D scientists and sales representatives in the US is dwindling. The high cost and low ROI for R&D at most major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies has forced life sciences executives to outsource many R&D functions that previously had been performed in house. Likewise, the inability of companies to bring novel, new medicines to market has reduced the need for pharmaceutical companies to maintain large sales forces. Put simply, there aren’t enough drugs to be sold to warrant large numbers of sales people trying to sell them! Given this backdrop, now may be a good time for bioprofessionals in these areas to consider new job opportunities and possibly new career paths. To that end, this post contains information about several biocareer developments sites (created by me) that may be helpful to bioprofessionals looking for work or new careers. 
Layoffs at big pharma companies
It’s a New Year but national unemployment is still hovering around 9.4 per cent. And, the unemployed will continue to face unusually harsh economic conditions when looking for new jobs. 
The $789 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that was passed in 2009 included funding for the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) act to promote the adoption of electronic health record (EHR) technology in health. Beginning next year, doctors and eligible medical providers can receive Medicaid incentive payments over a five-year period if they adopt a certified EHR technology platform and adopt so-called "five goals" established by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Aptuit, a drug discovery and development company .jpg)
I have been professionally critiquing curricula vita (CV) for scientists for the past 10 years or so. While some are better than others, they all tend to suffer from the same problems and mistakes. This is mainly because scientists, unlike many other jobseekers, are rarely taught the “ins” and “outs” of resume writing. 
Despite signs earlier this summer that job cuts at pharmaceutical companies were beginning to slow, it appears that the number of jobs lost in 2010 may come close to the roughly 61,000 pharmaceutical jobs that were eliminated in 2009. This is based on quarterly 
Despite public assertions made by Novartis a mere 
During the course of my long and somewhat varied career, I have had the opportunity to work at a variety of different companies and organizations. Admittedly, while I am generally a “half-empty” kind of guy, the places where I enjoyed working the most were the ones where people treated one another with respect and management made a concerted and obvious effort to create a positive workplace environment. It didn’t matter whether I was a manager or a contract worker; I enjoyed going to work every day and I worked hard for the company. 
The Pharmalot Blog today.jpg)
that it plans to eliminate 4,500 jobs by 2012. Of the 4,500 positions to be cut, roughly 1,700 will be eliminated in Germany. Interestingly, during the same period, Bayer plans on creating 2,500 new jobs in “emerging markets;” yet another sign that big pharma is betting on translating the explosive growth of these markets into large profits..jpg)
The fiscal year at most life sciences companies is drawing to a close, new budgets are being crafted and the holiday season is almost upon us. In years past, this time of year typically meant that it was bonus time for most pharma workers. Sadly, over the past three years bonus time has been replaced by layoff time. And, unfortunately the upcoming holiday season may not be joyous for many Pfizer and Roche employees..jpg)
Biogen .jpg)
There is no question that mobile apps are de rigueur and like other mobile devices users, life science researchers are beginning to regularly use them! After all, any innovation that can make the long hours spent doing laboratory research, easier, less time-consuming and enjoyable are likely to be welcomed by most researchers.
Yesterday, Novartis, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical company 
Unlike most of its competitors, which are downsizing operations, the Swiss drug maker Novartis 
In 2009, I posted an 
Medical/science writing is increasingly becoming popular among PhD life scientists are having trouble finding traditional laboratory-based, research jobs. The transition from laboratory research to writing is not an onerous one; especially if you like to write.
In contrast with many of its competitors, which have layed off thousands of pharmaceutical employees over the past two weeks, Roche.jpg)
Late last Friday, Sanofi-Aventis
While a(1).jpg)
Several months ago, I 
The Pharmalot Blog today reported that Abbott will be 
Last week, the outsourcing firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas 
The Pharmalot Blog 
We are now three years into one of the worst economic downturns in the history of the US. While the job market will eventually recover, don’t expect things to be the “way they were” before the recession. In other words, the job market has undergone a paradigm shift and new job seeking rules have replaced the old ones.
Regulatory affairs professionals (RAP) are by far some of the most important employees at pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical devices companies. Without RAPs, the requisite regulatory documents would not be filed and new drugs and devices would not be approved for marketing and sale.
Unlike PhD-trained scientists, physicians and other healthcare professionals must be licensed to practice medicine and are annually required to participate in continuing medical education courses (CME), seminars and lectures. CME training is required by medical licensing agencies to insure that healthcare practitioners are update to date with the latest clinical practices and informed about medical development within their respective fields. 
A recent study conducted by University of California San Diego Extension ranks careers in the health and life sciences fields at the top for recent college graduates. 
According to a 
Unemployment in the US is still hovering around 10% and in some parts of Europe like Spain it is closer to 20%. In marked contrast, the unemployment rates in Australia (5.1%) Hong Kong (4.5%) and Singapore (2.2%) are much lower. With the exception of Japan, Asian economies have rebounded more quickly from the global recession than those in the West.
Some of you may have noticed that a new tab entitled “BioCareers” has been added to the BioJobBlog navigation bar..jpg)
There are signs that the economy is improving and that unemployment levels have dropped from a high of 10.1 % to current levels which are hovering around 9.5 %. While this is good news, job cuts continue at many pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies as drug candidates fail in clinical trials and technological advances make certain employees dispensable.
I came across this excellent article written by 
Congratulations! The resume that you spent many hours carefully crafting has resulted in a face-to-face interview at a Company that you are extremely interested in. After the adrenalin rush has worn off, you think “OMG, I have to put together a seminar, make travel arrangements and buy new clothes and shoes (well only if you are a woman)”. Although you may think that the hard part of your job search is over; think again….the fun is just beginning. 
Under ideal circumstances, job interviews can be very stressful and emotionally draining. After all, how you perform on a job interview will likely determine whether or not you get an offer for a position. Unfortunately, unless you are an experienced jobseeker, who has has participated in many job interviews, you will likely be taken by surprise at your next one. To that end, the following tips, when adhered to, will likely help to reduce your stress level at your next job interview and possibly increase your chances of getting a job offer.
Life sciences employers ranging from academic institution to private sector companies are increasingly turning to telephone interviews as an initial means to screen prospective job candidates. While in many instances these interviews are perfunctory, they are conducted for two main reasons. First, the employer wants to verify that the information presented by the candidate in his/her curriculum vitae is correct and accurate. Second, and perhaps more importantly, to determine whether or not a candidate has sufficient oral communications skills that warrant the cost necessary to bring a candidate in for a face-to-face on site interview.
What is the real purpose of a business card? Everyone knows that they ought to have one but do they really help to generate business or aid in a job search? According to the “experts”, a business card is an integral part of any corporate or personal marketing plan (that’s right it is okay to market yourself). Of course, you can't expect a business card to tell the whole story about you or your company. That said, the real purpose of a business card is to present a professional image or impression so that people will remember who you are after they meet you. (2).jpg)
The advent of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter Linked-In and MySpace (does anyone still use it?) have taken the concept of "networking" to new levels. However, is sitting in front of computer thanking people for adding them to their friend's list really what networking is suppose to be about? I think not!
Like most scientists, the questions that I enjoy the most have simple answers. Black or white is much easier to deal with than shades of gray (although shades of gray can be titillating from a research perspective). With this in mind, the answer to my question about online job searches is a shade of gray rather than black or white. It goes without saying, that applying for jobs online is simple, facile, and extremely gratifying. On a given day, you can apply for thousands of jobs and feel like you have done something positive for your future..jpg)
One of the many things that I was not taught in graduate school (or as a postdoctoral fellow for that matter), was how to prepare a resume. Despite opinions to the contrary, a resume is a very important document that must be well organized and carefully crafted. This is because the first thing that every hiring manager sees when looking for new employees is a job applicant's resume. As the old adage goes, first impressions are the most important and the ones that last the longest. That said, it is typically in a job candidate's best interest to have the first impression be a good one. To that end, resume should not be prepared hastily nor should theybe crafted without a substantial amount of thought and consideration. I do not want to get into the nuts and bolts of resume writing in this post. However, every resume should contain the following information:
The ever-increasing competition for faculty positions is forcing many graduate students and postdocs to consider careers outside of academia with a likely eye on industrial jobs. Unfortunately, many of these would be industrial scientists lack the appropriate training and qualifications for entry-level jobs at pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. This is because most undergraduate and graduate programs do not offer training to their students in drug development, quality systems and manufacturing. The reasons for this include: 1) lack of well informed and qualified faculty members to initiate and develop specialized curricula on these topics and 2) a belief that job training is the responsibility of prospective employers, not academic researchers. Unless substantive curricular change is made to existing academic programs, the road to employment for many students will continue to be bumpy and fraught with difficulty. 
In this past Sunday’s New York Time Business section there was an .gif)
BioJobBlog and Career Management Source, a producer of online applications for streamlining job searching and hiring, have teamed to create .jpg)
While the layoffs at pharma and biotech companies continue, the good news is that fewer jobs are being lost in 2010 as compared with 2009. Despite the massive loss of R&D and sales and marketing jobs, many life sciences companies are beginning to hire again. In general, job opportunities at emerging growth public biotech and venture-backed start-ups appear to be growing while those at big pharma and big biotech are stagnant or shrinking. Specifically companies are 
More and more people are losing their corporate jobs because of the recession. The bleak job market coupled with diminishing opportunities for older, seasoned employees is forcing many to consider starting their own businesses to join the ranks of the self employed. However, before you take the leap, I highly recommend that you read Phyllis Korkki’s article in this Sunday’s New York Times entitled .jpg)
The expanding European financial crisis is forcing drug makers to continue to explore ways in which to cut costs. Faced with budget deficits amid a global economic crisis, European countries such as Germany, France and Greece have cut or plan to cut their health-care spending. Greece last month ordered drugmakers, including France’s largest drug maker Sanofi-Aventis, to cut prices by 3 percent to 27 percent to help rescue its economy. 
Genzyme .jpg)
There are rumors that companies are hiring again and that pharmaceutical jobs may begin to make a comeback over the next six months to a year. This may be a real possibility based on a new report released yesterday the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas, Inc..jpg)
It is becoming increasingly difficult for undergraduate and graduate students to secure entry-level jobs at biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. This is because these students lack the appropriate training and qualifications for entry-level jobs at pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Unfortunately, most undergraduate and graduate programs do not offer training to their students in drug development, quality systems and manufacturing. The is likely due to: 1) lack of well informed and qualified faculty members to initiate and develop specialized curricula on these topics and 2) a belief that job training is the responsibility of prospective employers, not academic researchers. Unless substantive curricular change is made to existing academic programs, the road to employment for many students will continue to be bumpy and fraught with difficulty..jpg)
While attending the Advanced Learning Institute conference “Social Media and Pharma” earlier this week I happened to sit down next to Laura Lindsay, a member of Tarrytown, NY-based Regeneron Pharmaceuticals’ corporate communications team. Not surprisingly, we struck up a conversation and I learned that unlike most pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies Regeneron is looking to hire 500 new employee over the next year or so. Yes, you heard it correctly: 500 NEW EMPLOYEES. The company currently employs about 1,200 people.(1).jpg)
Astellas, Japan’s second largest pharmaceutical company, yesterday .jpg)
There is ample anecdotal evidence to suggest that using social media tools like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook may help to improve your chances of landing a new job. For example, a recent .jpg)
Looking back on my career, I don’t think I would have done many things differently; except one. That is, I wouldn’t have listened as much to the advice of others who I thought knew (better than me) about what I should do with the rest of my life. Don’t get wrong, it is important to listen to what others think and the advice that they offer but—at the end of the day —the career path that you choose must be something that you like or perhaps even love to do! This sentiment was clearly and cleverly expressed in a 
After eliminating thousands of R&D and sales and marketing jobs, Pfizer announced that it will shed 6,000 manufacturing jobs. According to a post on the Pharmalot blog, Pfizer will close eight plants in Ireland, Puerto Rico and the US by the end of 2015, and also reduce operations at six other facilities in Germany, Ireland, Puerto Rico, the UK and the US..jpg)
While most successful professionals want you to believe that they “fell into” their current jobs, the truth is that they wouldn’t have made it as far as they had without thinking or divining some type of strategic career plan. The trouble is that many early career professionals buy into this assertion—and rather than chart their own career trajectories—tend to gravitate toward jobs or job titles held by these seemingly successful professionals. .jpg)
Japanese drug maker Takeda Pharmaceuticals announced today that it will slash almost 
While most life scientists that I know have Facebook pages and profiles on LinkedIn, many fewer don’t use Twitter. Perhaps more troubling, many life scientists who have heard of Twitter aren’t exactly sure what it is. For those of you who may have spent too much time in the laboratory for the past two years, Twitter is a microblogging platform (limit 140 characters) that is taking the social media community by storm. Analysts predict that Twitter may become larger and gain a greater market share than Facebook; but I digress..gif)
Eli Lilly and Co. announced last Thursday that it plans on 
Ed Silverman who runs the Pharmalot Blog yesterday posted an .gif)
There is no doubt that it is becoming increasingly difficult for persons with PhD degrees in the life sciences to pursue traditional career paths. To that end, Anne Miller of 
A common lament from that I frequently hear from graduate students and postdoctoral scientists at career development meetings is the need for "prior industry experience" to qualify and be considered for an industrial science job. Invariably, someone asks: “How in the world am I supposed to get industrial experience if nobody is willing to hire me as an industrial scientist?” Prior to the financial meltdown, I frequently advised PhD-trained scientists seeking industrial jobs to consider positions in smaller, local biotechnology companies.
After almost a week advising students about the difference between resumes and curriculum vita (for scientists there is no difference), academic vs. an industrial curricula vitae and cover letters at 
While attendance may be down at this year's Experimental Biology meeting in Anaheim CA aka the city that Disney built, attendance at FASEB Career Development seminars has been greater than normal. This is not surprising given the state of the economy and the increased competition for traditional career opportunities for persons with a life sciences PhD degree which include academic and pharmaceutical R&D jobs. With this in mind, I thought it might be useful to list some of the fastest growing and hottest new alternate career job opportunities for PhD life scientists. 
As a career development professional, I frequently offer job seekers tips on how to conduct a successful job search. However, my views on the topic are mainly derived from a five year stint as a professional recruiter and over 20 years as a job seeker. With this in mind, it may helpful for job candidates to hear the other side of the story; that is, what hiring managers expect from job seekers.
I will be at the 
There is a growing controversy over the rules governing whether 
In March 2009, the Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA) created a .jpg)
According to a .jpg)
The recent economic downturn, coupled with the growing competition for jobs at pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, has markedly increased the importance of internships as pre-requisites to gainful permanent employment. In the past, life sciences companies were willing to take a risk on promising new employees who did not possess any previous work experience. However, the glut of life scientists on today’s job market has empowered prospective life science employers to adopt a “let’s-try-them-out-before-we-hire-them” approach to employment. Like it or not, this is the way business is done these days..jpg)
Pfizer today .jpg)
Roche 
Samantha Miller of the.jpg)
For the past year or so, I have been focusing on the downsizing and layoffs taking place at big pharmaceutical companies. The unprecedented size and scope of these massive layoffs have overshadowed the downsizing and job loss taking place at small to mid-size public and private biopharmaceutical companies. In contrast with most fully-integrated vertical pharmaceutical companies that are flush with cash, most biotech companies—even the likes of Amgen, Genentech, Gilead and others—don’t have the cash reserves to maintain operations in a down economy or when a drug candidate fails in clinical development. This coupled with the lack of venture and private equity capital has been causing biopharmaceutical employees to lose sleep in recent months.
Ed Silverman, who runs the 
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Kitty Holman over at sent over a fairly .gif)
While I don’t advocate postdoctoral positions for individuals unless they plan on doing bench science for the rest of their lives, postdoctoral training is a fact of life for those interested in pursuing academic careers. To that end, The Scientist.com conducts an annual survey that ranks the 
As the competition for traditional life sciences jobs continues to intensify, many PhD-trained life scientists are looking for alternate career opportunities. One of the most popular and intriguing options is business—mostly because each of us more than likely knows somebody “who hit it big” by starting a biotechnology or life science-related company. While the entrepreneurial life isn’t for everyone, those intrepid individuals who are willing to give it a shot and possibly be successful ought to be aware of a few basic tools that will make life as an entrepreneur slightly less stressful. To that end, Emma Taylor over at 
My father was an elementary school teacher who eventually became an elementary school principal, a position that he retired from about 15 years ago. As you might imagine, education was an important part of the lives of my three siblings and me. Like my father, three of four of us eventually pursued careers in education: my sister teaches art to high school students in California; my brother is a professor in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Vermont and I have been a science educator for most of my adult life..jpg)
pharmaceutical industry and seemingly getting tougher..jpg)
Things are just not going well for Natick, MA-based device manufacturer Boston Scientific. Yesterday, the company announced that it lost $1.1 billion in the fourth quarter this year. The losses mainly stem from the company’s $1.73 billion 
After announcing that it would 
Many people, most notably GlaxoSmithKline employees, assumed that GSK management would disclose at its earning call yesterday how many people would lose their jobs in the company’s next round of job cuts announced earlier this week. Surprisingly, management decided not to announce the breadth and depth of layoffs ostensibly increasing the drama and anxiety of its employees about the cuts..jpg)
The past couple of weeks have been awful for employees at 
Despite the announcement late last week in the London Sunday Times that .jpg)
I previously have written about various aspects of the interviewing process in the life sciences industry. While I had written on various aspects of interviewing, I never assembled all of the pieces into a single post to give job seekers a complete view of the entire process. To that end, I came across a great post authored by .jpg)
Let’s face it; scientists aren’t generally regarded as being funny. While I have met several very funny researchers during my almost 35 year career, the vast majority of my colleagues have been mostly serious and, at times, difficult to amuse; especially when things weren't going so well in the lab.
Pfizer .jpg)
It is getting difficult to keep track of the job cuts that are happening almost daily at Pfizer. A quick perusal of the job cuts to date indicate that the company has eliminated about 1200 jobs in the past week;.jpg)
Just when you thought that holding on to a job couldn’t get any worse, Pfizer .jpg)
Officials for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 
Healthcare informatics (HCI) is one of the fastest growing professions in the US. This is because the Obama administration has allocated billions of stimulus dollars to create electronic healthcare records (EHR) in an attempt to reduce healthcare costs. .jpg)
Governor Deval Patrick and the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center 
Sanofi Aventis asked it entire sales force to remain at home the Monday after Thanksgiving to wait for a phone call to see whether or not they still had jobs. Nice way for the affected employees to spend Thanksgiving, eh?
Talecris Biotherapeutics .jpg)
After 
Employees of Pfizer/Wyeth were notified earlier today of impending changes and consolidation that will be taking place at the newly combined company. According to internal sources, Cambridge, MA, Groton, CT and Pearl River, NY will be the main centers of the combined company’s East Coast operations and San Francisco and La Jolla/San Diego CA will represent West Coast operations. In Europe, the research facility in Sandwich, England will be the main R&D center with a network of smaller sites, in locations such as Montreal, Ottawa, Cambridge UK, Aberdeen UK, and Dusseldorf, Germany providing expertise in vaccine production and biomanufacturing. The company’s China R&D Center in Shanghai will remain the focal point of operations in Asia,
Over the past year or so, more graduate students and postdoctoral fellows have been asking me about management consulting careers in the life sciences. I spent several years working as an independent management consultant and while it was a great experience the revenue stream was unreliable at best and the ability to work was highly contingent upon the economy. However, I can assure that my experiences as an independent management consultant were marketing different than those of consultants who work at the consulting firms like McKinsey or the Boston Consulting Group. For those of you interested in life style of a high-powered management consultant I highly recommend you visit their websites for more info. 
I am attending the .gif)
As somebody who has been unemployed more than once, unemployment can be depressing, very frustrating and extremely worrisome..jpg)
it would eliminate as many as 8,200 jobs, or 7% of its work force, to help the company cope with what it expects will be a slow economic recovery amid damped demand for drugs, medical devices and consumer products. J&J employs about 117, 000 workers globally. While the job cuts will be global, many losing their jobs will be outside of the US. 
I was sitting around minding my own business (well sort of) and I received the following e-mail message. People must be reading BioJobBlog or something!.jpg)
Cliff Mintz, .jpg)
The(1).jpg)
The fourth quarter is over, earnings are being announced and new budgets for the upcoming fiscal year are being evaluated and tweaked. This means that we have officially entered layoff and closure season. Isn’t it great that big companies wait until right before the holiday season to let employees know whether or not they will have a job next year?.jpg)
In a previous
I don’t want to brag but I have been touting career options in health informatics and health information technology (HIT) for the past year or so. Today, I came across a post by CareerBuilders declaring health informatics and HIT are the hottest new career trends to hit the market in recent years. .jpg)
An annual survey conducted by Science magazine and the American Association has identified the 
According to a report yesterday, 
In a previous post I .jpg)
The bad news is that the US unemployment rate is close to 10 percent. The good news is that the government is looking for scientists at FDA, NIH, USDA, CDC, EPA and other agencies. For those of you who haven’t applied for a government job, the process can be daunting and overwhelming. To alleviate some of the pain, Cyndi Fischer, MSA at the 
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported today that Pennsylvania state legislators, spearheading efforts to retain jobs in the state after the $68 billion Pfizer-Wyeth merger closes next month, said they were fairly confident many positions would remain at Wyeth's regional operations in Collegeville, Great Valley and other sites. Wyeth employs about 4,500 people in the region - about 3,600 in Collegeville and 900 in Great Valley and elsewhere.
The Belgian chemical manufacturer Solvay .jpg)
The competition for National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant funding has been intensifying over the past five years or more. In the past, NIH had gone to extraordinary lengths to insure that senior investigators didn’t lose their funding so as to not hinder the progress of long standing research programs. However, in recent years, NIH funding managers have eschewed the unwritten policy of preferentially funding established investigators in favor of younger ones! According to an 
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Eli Lilly & Co. is .jpg)
Reuters reports 
Back in the late 1990s, applying for jobs online was all the rage! The technology was new and fresh and applying for jobs online was fast and easy. Companies raced to build corporate websites for prospective job applicants, major job boards like Monster and Careerbuilder were launched and human resources professionals though they were ushering in a “new era of employee recruitment and retention.” While applying for jobs online once seemed like a panacea for both job seekers and corporate employers, it never has lived up to all the fanfare and hype!
According to a 
Despite its humble beginnings in the late 1970s, the biotechnology industry has transformed itself into one of the most vibrant sectors of the American economy. Pharmaceutical companies, once the bell weather of the life sciences industry, have finally conceded that biotechnology and not small molecules are the industry’s future!.jpg)
The economic crisis is having an adverse effect on enrollment at four year colleges and universities. Most four year institutions are reporting record low enrollments. While things are spiraling downward at many four year colleges and universities, business is booming at two year technical schools and community colleges. Seemingly, this ought to be good news for two year institutions. Unfortunately, statewide funding cuts and faculty shortages are making it difficult for community colleges and technical schools to accommodate burgeoning enrollment..png)
While surfing the web, I came upon a cool website called Foldit. Foldit is an online competitive, interactive protein folding game that showcases the principles and properties of protein biochemistries..gif)
Another useful post for job seekers from Job Profiles.org..jpg)
Amber Johnson at .jpg)
Word on the street suggests that Roche has severed its relationship with the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) the trade group that represents and lobbies on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry. The recent purchase of Genentech must have convinced the venerable 100 year old pharmaceutical company that proteins not small molecule drugs are the key to its future.
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As many of you may know, I attend national science meetings where I offer resume critiquing services and give career development seminars on topics ranging from resume writing to alternate career opportunities for life scientists. Frequently, I critique the resumes of 
After yesterday's post about career planning for life scientists, one of my soon to be former students in the Fundamentals of Bioscience Program aptly pointed out that my readers might have benefitted more if I had, in fact, offered information about alternate career possibilities for bioscientists. I don't want the student to get too overconfident but I had the same thought immediately after I uploaded the post. 
As expected, Merck announced today that it would eliminate an additional 16,000 job after the merger with Schering Plough is completed. The combined company is trying to get its headcount down to around 90,000 employees. The new job cuts represent a 15% reduction in the workforce of the combined company.
Yesterday, I gave a lecture entitled “Alternate Careers: Taking the Road Less Traveled” to over 100 members of the University of Pennsylvania’s Biomedical Graduate Student Association. As always, there were many good questions and comments during and after the presentation. Some of the career anecdotes offered by several of the students reminded me of a conversation that I had several weeks ago with one of my Fundamentals of Bioscience students—I teach a Product Development and Regulatory Affairs course in the program—who refreshed my memory about a typical graduate student approach to career development and job searching. “We don’t think about jobs or our careers until we begin writing our PhD theses” she said. “Until then, our advisers don’t talk about careers or jobs and only bring it up because our funding will run out” she added. Admittedly, I had forgotten this because so many years have passed since my graduate student days. That said, it forced me to consider how much the life sciences job market has changed since I was graduate student and how vitally important it is for today’s graduate students to think about and possibly explore different career options throughout the course of their graduate training..jpeg)
After months of complaints by university officials and scientific organizations, the US State Department .jpg)
By now, I think that most BioJobBlog readers understand that the job market for life scientists is lousy and that it isn’t likely to improve anytime soon. I know that many of you have spent close to 10 years training for a shot at an R&D job but the reality is that everybody needs to work to put food on the table—whether or not you find a job in your chosen profession. To that end, now may be a good time for those of you who are finding it difficult to land a job to consider one more year of training to get a certificate in a field that keeps you in science but not in R&D..gif)
Over the past three years, more than
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced on Wednesday that it was creating a new program aimed at “finding treatments for some of the 6,800 rare diseases that collectively affect about 25 million Americans.” 
Medtronics, the world's largest medical-device company, .jpg)
The New York Times reported 
I just arrived in New Orleans to participate in this year's Experimental Biology meeting. I will be giving talks on career development for bioscientist and providing resume critiquing for job seekers. This is my first time back to New Oreleans after Katrina and it ought to be interesting to check things out.(1).jpg)
Roche announced Tuesday that it will replace Arthur Levinson, PhD, Genentech’s current CEO and American biotechnology pioneer, with Pacal Soriot, DVM, MBA who currently leads Roche’s worldwide commercial operations. Dr. Levinson will become Chairman of Genentech’s newly configured board of directors but no longer have control over day-to-day operations at the company. Mr. Soriot will become CEO of Genentech and head all of Roche’s pharmaceutical activities in the US. Some of the other changes that will occur at the company include: Susan Desmond-Hellmann, Genentech’s president of product development, will move into an advisory role after the middle of this year. Genentech CFO David Ebersman is leaving the company and Ian Clark, who heads commercial operations for Genentech, will be chief marketing officer of Roche’s pharma division..jpg)
Are you a life sciences or healthcare professional with a passion for computers, IT or software development? If so, you might want to consider a career in health informatics—one of the hottest, new fields in the life sciences and healthcare industries. Health informatics specialists typically have expertise in medical records and claims, clinical care and programming. In other words, they have a foot in two worlds— medicine and technology — and can easily bridge the often daunting gap between them. It is important to point out that there is a difference between healthcare IT and informatics personnel. The health IT people run the servers and install software, but the informatics people are the ones who analyze and interpret clinical/ medical information and work with clinical and other healthcare staff to advise and help them.
Using Facebook and Twitter to find jobs is becoming routine in many industries including healthcare. However, the life sciences industry is lagging behind most others when it comes to social media and recruitment. Nevertheless, many companies and academic institutions are beginning to realize that Facebook (FB), Twitter and other science social networks are good source of qualified candidates for those difficult-to fill job openings. 
Since 2007, approximately 80,000 pharmaceutical jobs have been eliminated. The recent consolidation in the industry, e.g., Merck-Schering, Pfizer-Wyeth and Roche-Genentech suggests that many more life sciences jobs will be lost over the next year or so. Typically, to avoid law suits and possible discrimination claims, most companies will layoff a mixture of experienced and entry level employees that cover the racial, religious and age spectra. For those of you who may not know, Americans who are 40 and older constitute a “protected class of employees.” In other words, companies that layoff employees cannot disproportionately give pink slips to employees 40 years of age or older. This law was enacted because older employees typically have higher salaries and have accrued more benefits and vacation time than their more junior counterparts and eliminating them can drastically cut costs. While most companies are careful to layoff a mixture of junior and senior employees during large layoffs, a quick perusal of the demographics of employees who lose their jobs reveals that many of them are older, more experienced workers. Sacrificing a few entry level employees (to prevent any red flags) is worth it to the accountants who charged with cutting costs and orchestrating large corporate layoffs.
The US economy has lost about 7.1 million jobs since December 2007 and nationwide unemployment is hovering around 8.5 percent. Despite the lost of about 80,000 pharmaceutical jobs over the past three years and unprecedented consolidation taking place in the life sciences sector—Merck-Schering Plough, Pfizer-Wyeth and Roche-Genentech—the job prospects for scientists at biotech companies, medical devices and diagnostics, and government appear to be stronger than anticipated. While drug discovery and sales jobs may be scare, there are rapidly emerging opportunities in the fields of medical communications, regulatory affairs, biomanufacturing, clinical trials management , bioengineering, medical devices/diagnostics and website development and management..gif)
Rumors are rife that Novartis is going to purchase Lexington, MA-based Cubist for $1.6 billion. Wall Street analysts are speculating that Novartis may announce the deal as early as Monday..jpg)
It’s official! Roche has secured more than 96 percent of shares in Genentech Inc, completing its $46.8 billion buyout of the U.S. biotech group. It now holds some 93 percent of outstanding Genentech shares, a further 3 percent are guaranteed to be delivered within the next three business days and it will integrate the U.S. biotech group as soon as possible.
The old baseball adage which says that “you can’t tell the players apart without a program” is particularly apt when it comes to tracing the M &A activity that led to the creation of some today's largest pharmaceutical companies.
As you all know by now, 
Late Thursday, after 8 months of difficult and often acrimonious negotiations, Genentech’s board finally caved and agreed to allow Roche to purchase the remaining 44% of the outstanding Genentech shares that it doesn’t already own. The price: $95 per share—less than the $112 per share that Genentech’s board and management team wanted —but better than the $86.50 per share that was tendered last fall.
Late last week, Roche raised the price of its hostile offer to buy out .jpg)
Merck announced today that it was buying Schering Plough, the Kenilworth-New Jersey based drug maker, for $41.1 billion. The deal comes only six weeks after Pfizer said that it would purchase NJ-based Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. Superficially, the deal may make sense for the two struggling drug makers—they co-market the cholesterol-lowering drug Vytorin and also have collaborations in the respiratory diseases area. Also, Schering Plough has the European rights to the anti-arthritis drug Remicade and its 2007 purchase of the Dutch biopharmaceutical company Organon Biosciences NV provides access to several potential biotechnology drugs. Nevertheless, the impending merger will ultimately result in job losses and higher unemployment in the state of New Jersey..jpg)
Talk about a rough week. First, on Monday,.jpg)
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The ink hasn’t had time to try on the deal sheet and Pfizer already has announced what the impact of its acquisition of Wyeth will have on the combined company. Here’s what to expect: Pfizer will shed at least 19,000 jobs from it newly combined work force of 128,000 employees; it will slash its stock dividend by 50%; and it will take a $2.3 billion charge to settle a federal investigation over off label promotion of its former pain drug Bextra. 
Pfizer's board of directors voted on Sunday evening to acquire Wyeth for $65 billion. While this may help to assuage some of Pfizer's short term financial problems, like the loss of Lipitor in 2011,the deal will not help the combined company in the long run. 
Pfizer is the largest pharmaceutical company in the world. It was able to garner that distinction by going on a decade-long buying spree that began in the mid 1990s. To date, Pfizer has acquired Warner Lambert, Pharmacia and a host of smaller specialty pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Despite these acquisitions, which yielded top selling blockbuster drugs like Lipitor and Celebrex, Pfizer’s stock has never performed up to analyst’s expectations. In fact, while it’s smaller and more nimble pharmaceutical competitor’s stock prices were soaring, Pfizer’s stock price was either flat or falling. While conventional wisdoms suggest that “bigger is always better” this has proven not to be the case when companies, like Pfizer, attempt to win greater market share through mergers and acquisition and also loss sight of their core business.
I watched the Obama inauguration today and like many other Americans I was moved to tears during his speech. A new day is truly dawning in America! The one line that resonated the most for me is when he said he was going to restore American science to its rightful place. My colleague 
While the domino theory was incorrect when it came to the spread of communism during the Cold War, there may be a kernel of truth to it when it is applied to today’s pharmaceutical industry. On Tuesday, Pfizer announced that it would lay off 800 researchers. Not to be outdone by Pfizer,
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I received an e-message from a reader who alerted me about new information and rumors that are swirling about the layoffs announced yesterday by Pfizer. For more info, check out the 
Long rumored, 
Did you know that the top ten pharmaceutical companies in the world spent close to $50 billion dollars last year on R&D? That sum could be used to purchase the entire US biotechnology industry except for the five largest companies—Genentech, Amgen, Gilead Genzyme and Celgene. Further, pharma’s R&D budget is about 4 times the R&D budget of all of the US biotechnology companies combined. According to a
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Making a profit (and a large one at that) is the primary objective and driving principle of capitalism. That said, the for-profit sector is currently in a shambles—mostly due to greed and stupidity of the so-called stewards of the American economy. Maybe it is time for many of us to abandon corporate greed in favor of job opportunities in the more philanthropic and altruistic not-for-profit sector. I was surprised to learn that, despite the current economic downturn, there are growing numbers of jobs at non-for-profit hospitals, clinics, civic organizations and education (pre-school, primary and secondary)..jpg)
For those of you who haven’t been able to keep up with the latest pharma layoffs, I came across an .jpg)
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The relationship between science, education and industry has always been a tenuous one. To learn more about the complexity of this relationship check out this 
Pfizer announced today that it will .jpg)
Over the past few weeks, the blogosphere was rife with rumors and speculation that Pfizer would be laying off additional R&D personnel in December. However, it seems that the layoffs have been .jpg)
I know this is kind of odd, but I have recently begun to wonder which life sciences companies have layed off the most employees this past year. Well, for those of you out there who were also wondering we don't have to wonder any longer because Ed Silverman over at the Pharmalot blog has conveniently compiled a .jpg)
At its annual business briefing, 
Pfizer may announce 
The Pharmalot blog reported today that .jpg){kind=logo}
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Late yesterday, drug maker and consumer healthcare giant Johnson and Johnson announced that it was buying 
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I first thought about starting a social network for life sciences professionals about a year ago after joined I Facebook and LinkedIn and then learned about SciLink, one of the first social networks for scientists. Apparently, others had the same idea and today, there are currently, by my reckoning, no fewer than 20 social networks for scientists—each promoting a unique approach to networking for scientists..jpg)
I want to let my readers know that a beta-version of 
Astra Zeneca announced today that it would cut 1400 jobs and close several manufacturing facilities worldwide. .jpg)
If you were thinking East Coast cities you would be wrong. Think further west! .jpg)
Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) made a presentation this morning at the Credit Suisse Healthcare Conference that showed the company plans on saving an additional $2.5 billion in “productivity initiatives.” According to its new CFO, the company plans to squeeze the savings out of “headcount and related costs” — which likely means more downsizing and layoffs. Rumors have it that these job cuts will take place by December 1, 2008 just prior to when employee bonuses are traditionally decided.
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The Pharmalot blog reported yesterday that .jpg)
Do you ever wonder what the person who you share an office with is making? Or, have you ever wondered what other people think about the CEO of your company? Or, should I consider working at that company? The answers to these questions and more can now be found at a 4-month old website called .jpg)
I am frequently asked by life sciences PhDs whether an MBA would improve their chances of finding a job in industry. And, my response is always “maybe— because it depends. I don’t think that getting a traditional MBA really gives you that much of an edge especially if you are an established PhD looking for career advancement or change. However, if you are a graduate student or postdoc who has already decided that academia is not for you, then getting a certificate or M.S. through an established graduate program in biotechnology (.jpg)
According to the WSJ Health Blog “Wyeth is overhauling its early-stage research by slashing in half the number of therapeutic areas and diseases for which it will pursue new medicines. The idea is to concentrate on more innovative products and get them to market faster.” Whenever large companies restructure or announce reorganization plans, job cuts are soon to follow. So, if you are a Wyeth employee I recommend updating that resume as soon as possible!
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Back in 1993 when I was looking for an industrial job, I came across an ad for a research scientist at a Philadelphia-based biopharmaceutical company called Neose. Unlike most other biotechnology companies at the time, the company was focused on identifying and discovering drugs against carbohydrate-based targets—a novel idea at the time. Because I had spent the previous seven years working on carbohydrate biochemistry, I applied for the job and I was invited to interview for the position. At the time, Neose was a small, marginally-funded biotech company that was started in 1993 by a cell biologist from the University of Pennsylvania. 
Let me begin with the good news. The Indianapolis Business journal reported today 
After months of melodrama and acrimonious exchanges between Jim Cornelius and Carl Icahn, Eli Lilly, not Bristol-Myers Squibb, will acquire ImClone and gain access to the multibillion Erbitux franchise. In the end, Carl Icahn, ImClone’s Chairman, got the $70 per share that he wanted for ImClone stock.
New Jersey-based Pharmacopeia, the first-ever combinatorial chemistry company, announced that it had agreed to be purchased by Ligand Pharmaceuticals in a stock deal worth about $70 million. Onetime a leader in combinatorial chemistry and high throughput screening, Pharmacopeia has struggled of late after it jettisoned its profitable molecular modeling division several years ago. While the company was able to advance several of its lead compounds into early phase clinical testing, its longtime business model, predicated on multiple, small discovery deals with large pharmaceutical companies, was unable to provide enough capital to continue to sustain operations.
Carl Icahn wasn’t bluffing—there really was another company conducting due diligence on ImClone. And, true to Mr. Icahn’s word, Eli Lilly finished its due diligence late Wednesday and 
Pfizer announced earlier today 
Online career sites like 
I was reading Karen Ventii’s 
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As expected, .jpg)
As we all know (or should by now) the face-to-face interview is the most important part of any job search. I and others have lectured and written exhaustively on appropriate interviewing behaviors and the requisite skills that must be developed to become a successful interviewee. However, it is important to point out that you are not the only person in the room during an interview—let’s not forget about the interviewer! To that end, little has been written about the types of interviewers that a job candidate may encounter during the face-to-face. As somebody once advised me, knowing your “enemy” can go a long way to insure success. .jpg)
manufacturing facility in Cork Ireland. Approximately 180 people will lose their jobs. 
Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly & Co 
The pharma downsizing bandwagon continues to roll. Today, there are unconfirmed reports that GlaxoSmithKline will eliminate about 350 jobs at its R&D facilities in Philadelphia, PA and Research Triangle Park, NC. The area that will be hardiest hit by the cuts is Glaxo’s oncology program, which has not yield much over the past decade or so..jpg)
As much as I hate to admit it, I have been fired at least three times (usually for insubordination or rabble rousing) from jobs in my long and illustrious career. My guess is that anybody who has worked in the private sector has been fired at least once! Of course, nobody ever admits (unless asked) that they have been fired from a job. The point is that many people get fired and if you’re one of the unlucky people who get does fired; you will need to know how to deal with a “termination” on your resume. After all, once you are fired, you will likely need to look for a new job!
Bristol-Myers Squibb announced earlier today that its Board of Directors approved a deal to purchase ImClone for $4.5 billion. BMS already owns about 17% of ImClone’s shares and is ImClone’s US marketing partner for Erbitux, a monoclonal antibody treatment for colorectal and head and neck cancers. 
After beating Wall Street expectations and disclosing positive results from an osteoporosis (densomab) clinical trial, 
It was only a matter of time after 
Despite an increase in profits, .jpg)
On the heels of yesterday’s announcement that it wants to buy Genentech, Roche, in a surprise move, .jpg)
Teva and Barr Pharmaceuticals announced today
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I became a medical/science writer after a rather circuitous, unconventional and sometimes, checkered career. Along the way, I learned a few things that I thought would be important to share with other PhDs who are seeking to change careers, t broaden their horizons and or simply to bring home a paycheck! I am sure that I missed a few things but here are my top 10 reasons to consider a career in medical/science writing:
Yesterday Pfizer announced that it would layoff 275 employees
Pfizer is at it 
The social development of the web 2.0 has largely bypassed science. Hugely popular websites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Digg, Delicious and the like have millions of members and generate huge amounts of traffic. But those who use these sites come from all walks of life. None are devoted solely to science. 
Siemens, the German conglomerate that manufactures everything from locomotives to medical imaging devices, officially announced on Tuesday that it will be sacking 4% of it workforce or 16,750 employees. Although the company didn’t specify where all of the cut would be taking place—it is a global workforce reduction—a company spokesperson did indicate that 1,500 administrative jobs in its healthcare division would be eliminated and most of those jobs are in the US. Many of these cuts will likely take place in the tri-state area (New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania)—not welcome news for the already battered pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries in the region.
According to a
Siemens, the Germany engineering, electronic and healthcare company is planning to 
For the past 60 years, American science was second to none. However, the US is perilously close to losing that distinction. Put simply, American science, like its economy, is in free fall..jpg)
According to a 
Despite a 
Chalk up one for the good guys (good is a relative term). .gif)
Rumor has it
The consolidation trend in the US life sciences industry continues. Carlsbad, CA-based Invitrogen, a provider of cells, molecular and biochemical probes and reagents used in life sciences research,
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ecruiter blog 
Much like Paul Revere back in the day, there have been repeated, urgent warnings about the impending recession that will strike the US economy. Not surprisingly, the Bush administration has done its best to deny the notion that the moribund US economy is actually in recession. 
Each year Fortune publishes a list of the top 100 companies that it believes are the best to work for. A quick perusal of the 
Novartis announced today
The regulatory problems at Wyeth continue. The US Food and Drug Agency 
Bristol-Myers Squibb announced today that it will purchase California-based Kosan Biosciences for approximately $190 million. Kosan has been developing two classes of oncology drugs known as heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) and epothilones. One of Kosan's Hsp90 compounds is currently in Phase III clinical testing for the treatment of multiple myeloma. 
As a self-anointed career development professional, I frequently read blogs and online articles dealing with jobs and career development advice. That said, I happened upon a piece in Yahoo Education entitled “.jpg)
I came across an interesting article in Forbes Magazine that 
Merck announced last week that it will cut 1,200 sales jobs in the U.S. by the end of July. The company also confirmed a plan to eliminate a small natural products group in Spain and Rahway, NJ. Whereas the salespeople who lost their jobs were given notice by the company, the natural products researchers in Spain (and Rahway) learned of their imminent demise via a power point presentation given by a Merck executive (whose name has not been disclosed).
t layoff at the medical devices manufacturer in over 5 years. According to a press release, slightly over a third of the layoffs will come from the company’s local operations, which has about 8,000 employees. The overall effect of the reorganization will be relatively small—affecting roughly 3% of the company’s worldwide workforce of 39, 500.
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As I mentioned in previous posts, things are simply not going Merck’s way. Merck has been .gif){kind=small}
Stemcyte
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seems like nothing is going right for Merck these days. 
I want to thank my esteemed colleague, 
Over the past few days, many drug companies have been reporting their earnings for the first quarter of 2008. Few, if any, 
Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk announced today that it will expand its New Jersey-based North American headquarters. This is welcome news for the state. New Jersey has lost about 10,300 jobs so far this year. And that comes after it added 3,700 jobs last year, its worst performance since 2003. 
Genzyme announced today
There’s a ton of stuff online about .jpg)
Pfizer the world’s largest and least innovative pharmaceutical company .jpg)
Eli Lilly & Co. 
Millennium employees find themselves in an enviable position that most pharmaceutical and biotechnology employee would die for! Shortly after Takeda announced that it would buy Cambridge MA-based Millennium Pharmaceuticals for $8.8 billion, 
Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., Japan’s largest pharmaceutical manufacturer, announced that it has agreed to buy Cambridge MA-based Millennium Pharmaceuticals for $8.8 billion. Millennium, founded in 1993 by high profile MIT researchers and once heralded as one the most innovative American biotechnology companies, never lived up to analyst’s expectations. That said, the company did develop and win regulatory approval for an anti-cancer drug, 
I am sitting in Newark Airport waiting for my flight to San Diego which, not surprisingly, has been delayed for about 2 hours. As you might have guessed from the title of this post, I am on my way to the 2008 FASEB Career Development Symposium which is run every year at the annual FASEB meeting. 
Genzyme Corp announced yesterday
There has been some confusion surrounding the reporting of results from the Enhance Trial. As you know, the results from this study showed that the cholesterol-lowering drug Vytorin—a combination of Zetia and Zocor (a statin) —was no better than a generic version of Zocor by itself at controlling atherosclerosis..gif)
An editorial published in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine and 
According to a post on the Wall Street Journal Health blog, Wyeth announced today that it is laying off about 1,200 marketing and sales representatives who helped support Protonix, its blockbuster heartburn and acid reflux medication. The job cuts are part of a previously announced “asset reallocation plan” that is designed to reduce the size of the company’s workforce by about 5% this year, and by 10% over the next three years. 
Cambridge, MA-based 
Amgen announced today that Enbrel, its anti-TNF treatment for rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis, is now required to carry a black box on it label warning patients of the possibility of developing tuberculosis (TB). Enbrel’s label already has a warning about the risk of TB and other infections, but gets the more serious warning to suggest screening and monitoring of patients for TB. The Black Box also indicates that TB has been observed in patients using other anti-TNF treatments like Abbott’s Humira and Johnson & Johnson’s Remicade, which contain similar warnings. 
which is estimated to be worth around $7-$9 billion. 
According to Johnson & Johnson, a panel of advisors for the Food and Drug Administration, in a surprise decision, supported keeping Epogen, Procrit and Aranesp from Amgen and Johnson & Johnson on the market for use in cancer patients who are anemic from chemotherapy..jpg)
him when he assumed leadership of the company in May, 2005. At that time, Merck had withdrawn Vioxx from the market, its stock price had plummeted and the company was being sued by tens of thousands of people. Thanks to the launch of several new products, including Vytorin and Gardasil, a brilliantly-conceived Vioxx legal strategy which resulted in a $4.85 billion settlement for much of the litigation, Merck‘s stock price is soaring and has been able to restore some of its former glory.
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to set up manufacturing and research operations in Ireland? In my opinion, the recent Irish pharma and biotech explosion has little to do with luck and everything to do with strategic vision, excellent planning and a well trained, inexpensive workforce.
The repercussions of the Exubera debacle are finally being felt at Nektar Therapeutics. 
Cambridge, Mass-based Targanta Therapeutics 
US Food and Drug Administration regulators 
Things are not going well these days for Wyeth or the US Food and Drug Administration. In the latest of a series of complaints over FDA's safety review of drugs and industry influence on the agency, .jpg)
A federal judge ruled that Amgen
Astra Zeneca.jpg)
I inadvertantly misreported the story about Allergan closing an Irish manufacturing facility. I want to thank a reader for correcting the error. The company is closing the production facility in Arkow which manufactures silicon implants. Another facility in Westport produces Botox. I guess getting rid of wrinkles is still de riguer whereas larger breasts may not in vogue anymore..jpg)
Allergan Inc., the maker of 
Wyeth announced yesterday.jpg)
Well, it had to happen sooner or later. .jpg)
Amgen announced yesterday
Hat tip to Ed Silverman over at 
When was the last time that you heard that a company which was acquiring another one was willing to pay employees bonuses to induce them to remain at the company until the acquisition was complete? Usually, acquisitions are followed by corporate right-sizing and job layoffs! Sometimes good things happen to good people!.jpg)
Merck and Schering Plough have taken out two-page ads in several major newspapers defending their cholesterol drugs Zetia and Vytorin.jpg)
Bristol-Myers Squibb announced today.gif)
Still reeling from lawsuits filed last week by ex-sales reps’ alleging improper marking of Enbrel to treat patients with psoriasis, Amgen was subpoenaed on Monday by New Jersey's attorney general regarding allegations that the company promoted Enbrel for unapproved uses.
You gotta give Biogen/IDEC and Elan credit for winning regulatory approval for a product that was previously pulled from the market because of serious and potentially life-threatening side effects. .jpg)
downward turn. Even the recession-proof pharmaceutical industry has taken a huge beating over the past year or so– and things seem to be getting worse! The biotechnology industry, which is highly dependent upon venture capital and private equity to remain healthy, is also trending downward and will be hit hard if the economy slides into recession. To make matters worse, the US Department of Labor recently released figures which showed projected growth (for 2006 to 2016) for the fastest-growing occupations in America (see below). Not surprisingly, scientists–industrial or academic– did not make the top 20 list.
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Just what the market needs—another cholesterol control medication. That said you can always count on .jpg)
Remember the 
Just days after hiring its Chairman and former CEO Bob Essner as a highly paid consultant, Wyeth learned on Monday that that 
A Johnson & Johnson Co. plant in Bedford MA that manufactures medical devices
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laxoSmithKline announced today 
ay by the Swiss drug maker Novartis. Daniel Vasella, Novartis’ CEO foreshowed the event in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal that was published only 2 days or so ago. Hmmmmmmmm……….how clever! 
The New York Times reported today that medical device maker Boston Scientific Corporation had agree to sell its fluid management and venous access businesses for $425 million to the private equity firm Avista-Capital Partners. 
According to .jpg)
Ed Silverman at .jpg)
science education. 
Let me say from the outset that I have always been a big Merck fan (not withstanding the Vioxx scandal). Many people who I went to graduate school with in the late 1970s at the University Of Wisconsin Department of Bacteriology wound up getting jobs at Merck (more than 15 at last count). It goes without saying that there is a world of difference between Madison (“yeah, baby”) and Rahway NJ but, nevertheless, there has been a long standing relationship between UW and Merck dating back to the 1960s– I guess good science begets good science! That said, Merck showed the world with the Vioxx debacle that even one the best and most respected pharmaceutical companies is fallible and can make mistakes when it loses sight of what earned it its reputation in the first place–good science and better drugs. 
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The NY Times reported today.jpg)
According to posts by my colleague Ed Silverman over at .jpg)
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All good things must come to an end. Yesterday, FDA regulatory reviewers suggested that .jpg)
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Rumor has it that Bristol-Myers Squibb will announce its long-awaited layoffs this week. The company announced last Spring that layoffs were necessary and that employees affected by the job cuts would be notified during the first week of December 2007. Most of the layoffs will likely occur at BMSs' New York headquarters. Job cuts are also anticipated in sales and at several manufacturing sites.
sent me a link to a plethora of job sites where you can post your resume or if you are an employer post a job ad for free.
for behavior changes. Sales of the drug totaled $101 million last year. Small potatoes in pharma land but money nonetheless. 
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I read an interesting article by G. Pascal Zachary in the Sunday Business Section of the NY times entitled 
I guess the old adage that “You can’t teach old dogs new tricks” applies to 
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Johnson & Johnson announced.jpg)
Swiss pharmaceuticals producer Roche Holding AG said Thursday
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When are drug companies going to learn that monopolies are illegal in the US? 
The Marlborough, Mass.-based drugmaker .jpg)
I want to thank Ed Silverman over at the
The Massachusetts-based biotechnology company, 
A sharp drop in sales of its blockbuster diabetes medication 
There was a piece posted at 
Not to be outdone by big pharma, Boston Scientific, the medical device manufacturer that specializes in metal and drug-coated stents (which have recently garnered their fair of negative publicity in cardiovascular circles) .jpg)
Silverman who runs the 
First, there was the 
It was only a matter of time before physicians jumped on the social networking bandwagon—not that there is anything wrong with that. 
Biogen IDEC, one of the world's largest and most profitable biotech companies, may be for sale. The company was approached last week by several pharmaceutical suitors and Carl Icahn the billionaire former corporate raider. Mr Icahn has been interested in getting into the biotechnology business in a big way ever since he donated a large sum of money to Princeton University (his alma mater) for a new molecular biology building. He currently owns substantial shares in a number of companies including Imclone, Biogen IDEC and others.
Pfizer announced earlier this week
Not unexpectedly, Amgen Inc said on Wednesday it had shelved plans for a production plant in southern Ireland which would have generated 1,100 jobs. Amgen said the decision to postpone indefinitely the building of the factory in County Cork was "based purely on developments relating to Amgen's global business" and was no reflection on Ireland. As many of you may know, Ireland in recent years has become a hotbed of biomanufacturing largely because of its skilled workforce and lower cost structures.
This should not come as a big surprise (especially to the Amgen employees who already know that they will be losing their jobs) but 
Although industry and academia share a common bond (no pun intended), which is obviously science, the lexicons of these two seemingly similar but parallel worlds are markedly different. For example, do you know what the acronyms IND, NDA, cGMP, cGLP, BLA, CTD, PK or PD stand for? If you cannot decipher any of them, you ought to forget about getting a job in industry and stay in academia. If you know what 95 % or less of them mean, I highly recommend that you get some additional training before applying for your first industrial position. If you are one of the lucky few who recognized and correctly interpreted 100% of the acronyms, you are either working in industry or recently completed some postgraduate training in drug development and regulatory affairs. The point that I am trying to make is that you cannot possibly expect to get a job in industry if can’t speak the language that you need to know in order to succeed! As the old saying goes “You need to learn how to walk before you can run”. 
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The New York Times reported today
Can anything else go wrong at Pfizer? Unfortunately for Pfizer employees, the answer is yes. 
On Thursday of last week, .jpg)
I received a call the other day from a former biotechnology master’s degree student of mine who recently secured a job at a local biotech/medical device company. She called to inquire about training for her laboratory co-workers in 
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ImClone Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ: IMCL) announced today
Amgen announced late today that it was 
On June 22, 2007, the .jpg)
As an another sign of growing weakness in the pharmaceutical sector, new Jersey-based Johson & Johnson announced late last week that broad layoffs will occur across several divisions of the company. .jpg){kind=spacer}
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I posted a piece .jpg)
cross a new site called 
An integral part of my original life plan was to go to graduate school, get a Ph.D. in bacteriology and then become a tenured professor/educator at a small, elite liberal arts college. There was just something irresistible about have a secure job doing what I loved to do! Much to my surprise, my career did not turn out that way. Instead, I became a tenure track Assistant Professor at a medical school which turned out to be not what I had expected. After not getting tenure and learning that I could not work for anybody but me, I found myself at one of those crossroads in life that we all encounter. One path would keep me on my long, ongoing entrepreneurial trek whereas the path that I had not traveled would provide me with a steady income that I could use to support my three children, a wife and a suburban lifestyle (ugh!). Decisions …decisions! 
This article was authored by 
Being a biotech-focused person, I typically pay little attention to financial projections for the pharmaceutical industry. As many of you may know, the pharmaceutical industry has enjoyed unbridled growth, increasing profits and high stock prices for the past ten years or so. That said, I learned a few things about the pharmaceutical industry the other day that all jobseekers and current pharma employees ought to know. 
Despite its outstanding universities, easy access to venture capital and the old refrain that says” if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere” New York City and its surrounding metropolitan area are laggards when it comes to biotechnology start-up companies. Many biotech companies have been started in Westchester County, Long Island and Northern New Jersey but few have dared to “start up” in New York City itself. Sure, I.jpg)
Some of you have heard me talk at career development symposia about the growing job opportunities for medical writers. As a freelance medical writer and medical communications contractor, I receive no fewer than 5 inquiries per week about my availability for medical writing work. It is great to be wanted but the truth of the matter is that there is a dearth of qualified medical writers out there! 
Daniel Carlat, a Professor of Psychiatry at Tufts Medical School, blasted the continuing medical education (CME) industry in an Op-Ed piece 
According to a recent 
Pfizer Inc. has hired a company owned by former football player Roger Staubach to market a Michigan research campus the pharmaceutical giant plans to close. .jpg)
I was listening to NPR the other day and the Commissioner of the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) was interviewed. He mentioned that the USPTO has been hiring 1000 new employees for the past few years. He expects the trend to continue for the unforseen future as the number of patent applications continues to increase. Based on his interview, he indicated that a new hire at the USPTO with the appropriate background could earn as much as $86,000 per year. Folks with experience can be hired at salaries in excess of $100K. Not bad for reviewing patent applications every day..jpg)
I presented a number of seminars at the Experimental Biology meeting a couple of weeks ago offered attendees a number of ideas regarding alternate career paths for individuals with Ph.D. degrees. One new emerging career path that is still under the radar is something called project management. The name is self evident—your job as a project manager is to manage projects. Project managers are responsible for managing a project according to specified timelines and within the budget that was set for the project. 
The New York Times reported today.jpg)
Reuters reported today that .jpg)
According to a recent article in 
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Regulatory affairs is one of the hottest and fasting growing career tracks in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical devices industries. The trouble is,there is very little formal training available to prepare individuals for careers in regulatory affairs. Historically, most regulatory affairs professionals honed their skills through on-the-job training. This meant that the only way to pursue a career in regulatory affairs was to first get hired at a pharmaceutical or biotechnology company and then transfer into the regulatory affairs department to learn your craft. Not surprisingly, due to expansive growth of the biotech and medical devices industries, there are ongoing shortages of regulatory affairs professionals, most notably in the area of regulatory writing. In an attempt to deal with these shortages, a number of universities including .jpg)
The Motley Fool on Friday
A new report recently issued by America’s top universities says that the nation’s “biomedical enterprise is in a serious crisis”. The crisis purportedly has resulted from shortfalls in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that only allows 20% of projects submitted for funding to be supported. The report goes on to suggest that “brilliant young scientists are leaving science in frustration, productive researchers are not doing research due to lack of funding and that the U.S. lead in biotechnology is being threatened”. Economics 101 tells us that a lack of available research funds ought to translate into concomitant reductions in the numbers of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who are being trained at these institutions. This is simply not the case! A quick perusal of departmental rosters at many research institutions indicate that there is an overabundance of both graduate students and postdoctoral fellows at these institutions many of whom cannot find jobs at the end of their training. So what is really going on? Some insight into the situation was offered in an 
As many of you may know, I sometimes moonlight as a medical writer to put food on the table to feed my family. Several graduate students and postdoctoral fellows have approached me at career fairs and asked “How do I become a medical writer?” Until now, I really did not have a good answer to that question (maybe because I do not know how I became a medical writer?). That said, a colleague of mine, .jpg)
The mere mention of the word ‘vaccine” used to cause pharmaceutical executives to shudder and recoil with fear. Aside from Merck, GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi-Aventis no other pharmaceutical companies wanted to touch vaccines with a “10-foot pole”. This was largely due to liabilities issues surrounding vaccine use and also because vaccines are less financially lucrative than therapeutic products. My, how things have changed in the past five years! 
In the not so distant past, biotechnology and pharmaceutical scientists looked down their noses at other scientists who worked in the medical devices and diagnostics industry. Boy, have times changed! .jpg)
Reuters reported
Frequently, students who I teach in the NY Biotechnology Center's "Fundamentals for Biotechnology Certificate Program" and the "Georgetown Biotechnology Masters Program" ask me about internship opportunities. My lack of knowledge regarding student internships led me to check out what type of internship opportunities exist at various government agencies. Lo and behold, 
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In an unprecendented move, the 
The practice of hiring temporary employees for short term, contract-based work is not a novel or new one. IT companies championed this practice in the mid 1990s and have been successfully hiring “contractors” over the past decade. These companies quickly realized that the contract employee paradigm made fiscal and operational sense. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with contract employees, they are typically hired on three (3) to six (6) month-long contracts and are paid an hourly rate. Unlike salaried employees, contractors are not entitled to receive any company benefits like health insurance or 401K plans. Large companies can save hundreds of millions of dollars by not offering benefits to temporary employees. Another financial benefit is that contract employees are only paid when they show up for work! This is in marked contrast with salaried employees who rarely have to account for time spent in or out of the office. Not surprisingly, contractors are carefully scrutinized for the hours they work and must submit weekly timecards (that summarize total hours worked) before they are paid. From an operational perspective, contract employment permits employers to determine whether a particular contractor is the”right fit’ for a company. If a contractor is deemed to be a good employee worth retaining, a company has the option of either offering a contractor a second contract or hiring them on as a full-time employee. On the other hand, if a contractor is not working out, the company can “let them go” without any hesitation because temporary employees have no employment protections.
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company’s best selling products are Epogen® (EPO) and Aranesp® (ARA) which are recombinant proteins that stimulate red blood cell production. EPO and ARA account for over half of Amgen’s yearly income. In 2006, the combined sales for the two products was approximately $6.6 billion (ARA, $4.5 billion; EPO, 2.1 billion). Both EPO and ARA have been approved to treat kidney dialysis patients who are anemic whereas similar products, e.g. Procrit®, Eprex®, are used to treat chemotherapy-induce anemia in cancer patients. Over the past 6 months, there has been a growing body of evidence that EPO, ARA and Procrit are being used to over-stimulate red blood cell production to levels that may cause heart attack or stroke in dialysis and cancer patients. More recently, results from clinical trials to determine whether EPO and ARA can be used to treat non-chemotherapy induced anemia in cancer patients indicated that cancer patients treated with EPO or ARA are at greater risk for death as compared to placebo-treated patients. Together, these data may prevent Amgen from gaining regulatory approval for use of EPO or ARA in new oncology indications..jpg)
An article written by 
Those of you who are old enough may remember a time when a good medicinal chemistry group was crucial to the success of any pharmaceutical company. For those of you who don’t know, the job of a medicinal chemist is to use traditional organic chemistry to create variants of promising lead compounds with the hope of identifying an NME with optimized therapeutic properties. Much of the art associated with medicinal chemistry was lost over the past decade because of the increased emphasis placed combinatorial chemistry. Not surprisingly, as the interest in combinatorial chemistry grew, there as a concomitant decrease in the number of medicinal chemistry jobs. Despite all of the hype and fanfare surrounding combinatorial chemistry, it has not delivered on its promise of creating “hundreds on new molecular entities each year”. Instead, combinatorial chemistry has just become another tool in the drug discovery and development armamentarium.
Much has been written about the end of the “blockbuster” drug era in the pharmaceutical industry. For those of you who may not know what I am talking about, a blockbuster drug is one that yields a pharmaceutical company over $1.0 billion a year in sales. If you figure that the profit margin on a blockbuster product is typically around 1000 per cent, it is easy to see why pharmaceutical companies have relied on the blockbuster drug business model for the past few decades. Over the past several years, pharmaceutical company executives and Wall Street analysts have declared that the blockbuster drug model era may be drawing to a close. Unfortunately, it was this business model that enabled major pharmaceutical companies to make billions of dollars, grow larger and hire tens of thousands of new employees. Consequently, it should not come as a surprise, that the end of the blockbuster drug era will have a serious negative impact on the size of the global pharmaceutical workforce 
I just received an e-mail message from a medical writing colleague who worked with me at Wyeth. We got to know one another because she is a Seinfeld fan and I used to play softball with Larry David, (a co-creator of Seinfeld and the star of Curb Your Enthusiasm), while I was a postdoctoral fellow at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. She loved to hear Larry stories. That said, she is a straight shooter who let folks know what she thought and how she felt. Unlike me, she is just starting her career as a medical writer and the job at Wyeth was her first. 
The LondonTimes reported today that the 
Stephanie Saul of the NY Times reported today in an article entitled “.jpg){kind=small}
Jena McGregor recently published an article in BusinessWeek/Online entitled “
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My local paper, the Trenton Times, reported today that the impending merger with the French drug maker Sanofi-Aventis will cost jobs in Mercer County, New Jersey. BMS, headquartered in Lawrenceville NJ, employs 7,600 people, making it the third largest employer in Mercer County . The loss of jobs is likely after the merger because Sanofi-Aventis has a history of laying off employees after acquisitions and mergers. For example, after Sanofi-Synethelabo bought Aventis in 2004, the merged company laid off 700 workers in its New Jersey offices. Although neither BMS nor Sanofi-Aventis would confirm reports of merger talks, BMS has made several moves in recent months to indicate that it is up for sale. In September 2006, Bristol-Myers officials confirmed for the first time that they would consider selling the company. Earlier this month, the company sold three of its offices (located on prime real estate) in West Windsor and Plainsboro New Jersey. Finally, the New York Times reported today that BMS recently announced agreements with several top managers that "would allow them to walk away with significant compensation in the event of demotions, transfers or cuts in pay".
Over the past few days, I received several inquiries regarding training for individuals interested in pursuing careers in medical writing and medical communications. The good news is that both of these fields are exploding and there simply are not enough qualified candidates to fill all of the positions that are open. The bad news is that there is very little formal training or instruction to prepare folks for jobs in these fields. .jpg)
Douglas Eisenhardt over at the Bostonworks.com 's 
