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Since 2001 many major pharmaceutical companies have been restructuring their sales forces and laying off reps to reduce redundancies, improve efficiencies and cut costs. This downsizing, which likely peaked about a year ago, is mainly in response to the projected loss of sales revenue as many blockbuster drugs lose patent protection over the next three years or so. For example, products like Lipitor, Plavix and Zyprexa that currently generate more than $142 billion in sales are expected to face stiff generic competition in the very near future.

Nevertheless, while many pharma companies are restructuring their sales forces, there is a growing demand for new reps at speciality pharma, biotechnology and generic drug companies. Unlike their pharma counterparts, the new reps are more specialized and require additional training to better understand how to maximize sales of increasingly complex products in both developed and emerging life sciences markets.  

One organization, National Association of Pharmaceutical Representatives (NAPRx), a trade organization that provides continuing education, certifications and career development for its members is helping to usher in the era of pharmaceutical and biotechnology sales reps. To that end, NAPRx has embarked on an aggressive advertising campaign to help to recruit and match sales representative with drug companies who are hiring. Many sales jobs are open throughout the US. Jobs are available in small cities like Littlerock, AR, Milwaukee, WI and Baton Rouge, LA as well as larger cities including Pittsburgh, PA, Los Angeles, CA,Boston, MA, Honolulu, HI and San Diego, CA. Starting salaries range from $65 to $85 K. For more information about other job openings please visit the BioJobCenter. 

In a previous blog post, I suggested that a career as a sales rep may represent viable alternate career opportunities for PhD-trained scientists who have an interest in sales and aren’t averse to earning a living selling drugs to physicians and other healthcare providers. Because of the complexity of newly approved biotechnology and speciality pharma products, drug makers are beginning to understand that persons with a strong background in molecular biology, immunology and pharmacology will be required to help to sell their products to physicians, hospitals and other healthcare organizations. That said, sespite the recent reductions in R &D for new drug development, there will always be a need for drug makers to sell their products! After all, selling drugs is how these companies remain in business. 

For more information about a career in pharmaceutical and biotechnology sales please visit the NAPRx website.

Until next time... 

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

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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 blurb in breakingviews.com, Pfizer alone spent $8 billion last year which was greater than the sum spent by biotech’s top five companies. What this tells us is that pharmaceutical companies are grossly unproductive when it comes to drug discovery and development. This would explain why nearly three-quarters of all new medicines approved for sale in the US last year originated at biotechnology companies.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that biotechnology companies are much more efficient at R&D than pharmaceutical companies. More importantly this suggests that something must change so that pharma can continue receive adequate ROI on internal discovery programs. Perhaps big pharma ought to spend a greater portion of its R&D budget on biotech mergers and acquisitions rather than continuing to invest in inefficient and failing internal R&D programs. While biotechnologynology companies are exceptional in drug discovery, they are severely lacking when it comes to clinical development of new drugs. This is largely due the high costs of conducting human clinical trials (which are required for regulatory approval of all new medicines). Most biotechnology companies are strapped for cash and don’t have sufficient funds to conduct clinical trials on their own.

Not surprisingly, given the recent financial downturn, there has been a recent spate of deals in which pharma has been willing to pay large sums of money for clinical development rights to promising new biotechnology drugs. Moreover, a majority of the almost 160,000 employees layed off by pharma companies in the past few years have been R&D scientists. This suggests that pharma is beginning to realize that its money may be better spent doing deals or buying biotech companies rather than continuing to invest large sums of money into it’s own unproductive R&D programs. Unfortunately, this paradigm shift doesn’t bode well for doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows who are training in the life sciences. This is because many entry-level biotech positions, traditionally filled by newly-minted PhDs and postdoctoral fellows will likely be filled by experienced, pharmaceutical employees who lost their jobs in the recent rounds of layoffs. As much as I hate to say this, if I were a life sciences graduate student or postdoctoral fellow considering an R&D career in industry, I would begin to explore alternative career options.

Until next time….

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

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