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I am attending the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) in sunny Phoenix, AZ where I will be providing career development guidance to undergraduate and graduate students. Ironically, given the dismal job prospects in the life sciences industry for entry level employees, I will be giving a talk on how to find a job!  Last year's meeting in Orlando was a great one and I expect this one to be just as good.

While I am on the road, it doesn't mean that I won't be keeping track of the goings on back in my neck of the woods. To that end, Merck announced today that it will keep Schering Plough's corporate headquaters in Kenilworth, NJ open. Merck announced the decision today after closing on the $7 billion deal yesterday. This is good news for the NJ residents who currently work at the Kenilworth site. New Jersey has been extremely hard hit by all of the pharmaceutical layoffs in the past few years. Unemployment continues to rise and things will not get any better since conservative Republican Chris Christie was elected governor on Tuesday (he plans on laying off massive numbers of state employees) once he takes office in 2010.

Johnson and Johnson, on the other hand, announced that it was closing research & development facilities in Radnor and Chesterbrook, PA and consolidating those operations at the company's Spring House site. The New Brunswick, N.J., company would not say how many jobs are at those locations now or how many would remain in Spring House after the move, which is to be completed by 2012. These closure come shortly after JnJ announced earlier this week that is was elimating ca 8,200 employees or roughly seven percent of its global workforce.

Let's hope that things begin to improve soon. 

Hat tip to the Pharmalot blog!

Until next time....

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!

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Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) announced late yesterday that it intends to purchase Princeton, NJ-based Medarex for $2.1 billion. BMS and Medarex were working collaboratively to develop a monoclonal antibody called Ipilimumab as a treatment for late stage melanoma.

The acquisition represents BMS’s public commitment to transform itself into a “next generation pharmaceutical company” with both pharmaceutical and biotechnology products in its arsenal. Last year, BMS bought Kosan Biosciences, Inc a California-based biotechnology company developing novel cancer treatments. Also, as you may recall, BMS lost ImClone to Lilly in a bidding war over Erbitux—a monoclonal antibody-based colorectal cancer treatment that was co-marketed by BMS. 

Medarex was one of the last independent, public, late stage monoclonal antibody development companies in the biotechnology industry. Many of its competitors, like ImClone and Cambridge Antibody Technologies, had already been acquired by big pharma and I was wondering when Medarex would be acquired. I have always held Medarex in high regard and it is a solid and well position company. To that end, I recommended that my mother purchase Medarex stock several years ago telling her that I thought it had a huge upside. Not surprisingly, the stock has been soaring since the announcement; so much so that my mother called me today to tell me how smart I was—go figure.

It is not clear, at present, what effect, if any, the Medarex acquisition will have on the employment situation in New Jersey. Although BMS is headquartered in NYC, it has two large sites in New Jersey, one in Lawrenceville and the other in Plainsboro. As mentioned above Medarex is based in Princeton, NJ. BMS has been steadily downsizing over the past three years and I suspect that there may be more layoffs after the Medarex deal closes.  If there are layoffs, more are likely to occur on the Medarex side of the business.

While I have been critical of some of BMS’ strategic moves in the past, I think the Medarex acquisition is an outstanding one and BMS will likely benefit from it!

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!

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I heard today from another one of Grace Abrams’ grifting victims. Apparently, this individual purchased a sick puppy from Ms. Abrams several months ago which at one year old developed some problems that likely resulted from congenital defects due to inbreeding. This person told me that a friend of hers also purchased a ‘Havanese” from Ms. Abrams which they suspect really isn’t a Havanese (despite ‘papers’ that indicate that it is). As you may recall, we also received suspect pedigree papers for the dogs that we purchased from Ms. Abrams (which prompted us to get both dogs tested). I sent Grace’s most recent victims information on the Wisdom Panel DNA tests that we used to perform genetic testing on our dogs, the results of which confirmed that Moose, our so-called Havanese, was really a mixed breed dog!

I wonder how long it will take Donna Roberts to send me one of her threatening, vitriolic notes  (read the comments) after I post this story?  I will keep you posted….

Until next time…

Good Luck with finding a new puppy!!!!!!!

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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. 

I would say things can’t get much worse but …..

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!

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