CAREERS AND RECRUITMENT

Third-quarter biotech job picture

Michael Francisco

n the third quarter of 2015, Beijing-based cancer treatment devel- three new global business units: general medicines and emerging Ioper BeiGene announced it will build a biomanufacturing facility markets; specialty care, also known as ; and diabetes in the BioBay innovation hub at Suzhou Industrial Park, to be com- and cardiovascular. It is the first major move by Olivier Brandicourt, pleted by 2017. The facility will manufacture compounds for clinical who became CEO in April. Sanofi has said it plans to launch up to six trials and support eventual commercial production. new drugs this year and about two new drugs for the next three years. AbbVie has signed a seven-year lease in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Advertised biotech and pharma sector jobs in the job databases for space recently vacated by Vertex Pharmaceuticals. The move marks tracked by Nature Biotechnology during the third quarter of 2015 are AbbVie’s entry into the red-hot Cambridge area; the Chicago-based shown in Tables 1 and 2. Other downsizings within the life sciences pharma currently has a research facility in Worcester, Massachusetts. industry are shown in Table 3. European giant Sanofi (Paris) announced it will restructure into five global business units. In addition to its existing Sanofi Pasteur vaccine unit and Merial animal health business, Sanofi will create Table 2 Advertised job openings at the ten largest pharma companies b Number of Number of advertised openings Table 1 Who’s hiring? Advertised openings at the 25 largest Companya employees Monster LinkedIn Naturejobs biotech companies Novartis 127,724 1,000+ 55 3 Number of Number of advertised openingsb Johnson & Johnson 126,600 1,000+ 2,582 2 Companya employees Monster LinkedIn Naturejobs Sanofi 111,974 433 907 1 Monsanto 21,500 413 202 0 GlaxoSmithKline 99,488 126 0 0 Amgen 18,000 795 419 41 91,500 927 88 8 CSL 10,515 1,000+ 73 0 Abbott 91,000 723 35 2 Life Technologies 10,000 2 73 1,816 Laboratories PerkinElmer 7,500 1 40 0 Merck & Co. 83,000 282 23 1 Roche 82,089 139 39 9 Bio-Rad Laboratories 7,380 188 3 0 HealthCare 55,300 4 18 4 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. America, Inc. © 201 5 Nature bioMérieux 7,285 52 16 0 AstraZeneca 51,700 607 281 3 WuXi AppTec 6,817 58 26 0 Total 5,241+ 4,028 33 Biocon 6,253 0 0 0 aData obtained from FiercePharma. bAs searched on Monster.com, LinkedIn.com and Biogen 5,950 381 117 0 Naturejobs.com, 14 October 2015. Jobs may overlap. npg Novozymes 5,865 0 14 0 IDEXX Laboratories 5,400 6 108 0 Shire 5,367 1,000+ 263 0 Table 3 Selected biotech and pharma downsizings Gilead Sciences 5,000 38 345 3 Number of Celgene 4,700 282 126 162 Company employees cut Details Endo Pharmaceuticals 4,629 164 20 0 Active 37 Will reduce its headcount by 66% to 19 Qiagen 3,999 55 79 0 Biotech employees after announcing in April that it would discontinue development of tasquinimod for Actelion 2,433 14 6 0 prostate cancer. Illumina 2,400 8 317 0 Celladon 9 Will cut the remainder of its R&D staff after its Vertex 2,200 270 156 0 board unanimously agreed to seek a sale of the Pharmaceuticals company or its assets and/or a liquidation in lieu Regeneron 1,950 273 32 0 of a partnership. Pharmaceuticals Lundbeck ~1,000 Will reduce headcount by 17% to about 4,801 to Biotest 1,727 1 0 0 cut costs and regain profitability. The company Pharmaceuticals plans to reorganize headquarter functions and Alexion 1,373 198 87 0 European commercial operations. Pharmaceuticals Transgene 120 Will reduce headcount by 42% to about 163, AMRI 1,329 100 3 0 ceasing pharmaceutical development and biomanufacturing to focus on clinical and CK Life Sciences 1,278 0 0 0 infectious disease. Total 5,279+ 2,525 2,022 Vivus 50 Will for the second time this year reduce aAs defined in Nature Biotechnology’s survey of public companies (31, 697–703; 2013). bAs searched on sales representatives for obesity drug Qsymia Monster.com, LinkedIn.com and Naturejobs.com, 14 October 2015. Jobs may overlap. (phentermine/topiramate). During 1Q15, Vivus cut the Qsymia sales force down to 100 from 150. Source: BioCentury. Michael Francisco is a Senior Editor at Nature Biotechnology.

NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY VOLUME 33 NUMBER 11 NOVEMBER 2015 1211