Hospital Pharmacists- If you were offered a position in Industry, would you take it?

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Rubisco

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I know the retail landscape is changing, but hospital pharmacy (at least for those of us already in) is relatively normal for now. If you were offered an industry job, would you take it? this question is strongly factoring job stability. Which would you choose? or would you stay put.

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I wouldn't. Industry may offer a good paycheck and a different work environment, but job stability is definitely not one of the main appeals of industry.
 
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I know the retail landscape is changing, but hospital pharmacy (at least for those of us already in) is relatively normal for now. If you were offered an industry job, would you take it? this question is strongly factoring job stability. Which would you choose? or would you stay put.
How did you make that transition? Which company is it? It all depends on what you want to do with your life. I personally would love to do it. Once you get into industry, the possibilities are endless...
 
Thank you all for your responses. It kind of mirrored my "gut" feeling about the industry.

Seems like it's a challenge to break into so I wasn't sure if I was passing up an opportunity. I'm sure I am to some respect, but I do not want to move or constantly worry about losing a position. Stability is one of my greatest preference
 
I know the retail landscape is changing, but hospital pharmacy (at least for those of us already in) is relatively normal for now. If you were offered an industry job, would you take it? this question is strongly factoring job stability. Which would you choose? or would you stay put.
I had a industry rotation and hated it. High turnover, but that may be due to the owners. They are focused on a few products and you would ultimately lose a lot of broad knowledge and exposure. I work hospital staffing. Love it.
 
Thank you all for your responses. It kind of mirrored my "gut" feeling about the industry.

Seems like it's a challenge to break into so I wasn't sure if I was passing up an opportunity. I'm sure I am to some respect, but I do not want to move or constantly worry about losing a position. Stability is one of my greatest preference

Industry is by far, the most unstable pharmacy career path. High risk high reward.
 
Industry is by far, the most unstable pharmacy career path. High risk high reward.
The job instability in industry seems a bit overstated here. While it's true that people tend to move around companies and job functions more often - let's say once every 3 years - part of it is self-driven because of the advancement opportunities (greater responsibilities/salary), and the other part by necessity (trial failures, divestitures). In addition, if you live in one of the major hubs (NJ, CA, MA, maybe IL/NC), you'll find another job in another firm if the latter happens.

I personally don't know many people who are afraid of losing their jobs and not finding another one right now and don't think that's a hallmark of industry.

If you want more direct patient care, more clinical application, clock in-out lifestyle and the same stable job you could work in for 10+ years (hopefully), then yeah, I'd say hospital would be a better fit.
 
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I wouldn't take the job today, but go back a few years when I was staffing and I definitely would have taken it. Sounds interesting.
 
No. Hospital job is very stable, and relatively good pay. I personally know 2 people who had worked in industry and lost their jobs. One was a pharmaceutical patent lawyer, and the other was head of vaccines for Merck, Novartis, and GSK. Patent lawyer temporarily became a preceptor. Head of vaccines is still jobless.

I wouldn't trade stability for a higher paycheck at all. When I was younger, like 8 years ago, I thought there was nothing better than retail money. I know now there is, and it's not the money.
 
I remember one of the large big pharma companies I rotated at wouldn’t even look at you for their med info department unless you were 7-10 years experienced in your chosen field (inpt, am care, etc...)

I like stability, but I feel like it would make a great second career/career change for me when I’m in my 40s and even then I’d make sure I was still current in hospital practice to maintain skills.

But my answer is still no, I’d turn it down. Most firms have HQ’s on the east coast and west coast is mostly smaller/1-3 drug portfolio companies which live and die on FDA approvals.


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(The non-adult entertainment explanation of what I tell my students about working for industry.)

Yes, every four to six months. If industry jobs were treated like partners, they're good for more than a one-night stand but not a relationship that you'd introduce to your family, much less marry. They make for effective trysts from time-to-time. If you know that industry is a high pressure, low stability, and no loyalty job and work it that way, the extra money can be used for retail therapy or better alcohol to drown your sorrows between jobs.

That's why you should always work for government (academia or the civil service). Not matter how badly you treat the job (or it treats you), that masochism tango will always be there for you. It's not like Walgreens where it's a 3F relationship.
 
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(The non-adult entertainment explanation of what I tell my students about working for industry.)

Yes, every four to six months. If industry jobs were treated like partners, they're good for more than a one-night stand but not a relationship that you'd introduce to your family, much less marry. They make for effective trysts from time-to-time. If you know that industry is a high pressure, low stability, and no loyalty job and work it that way, the extra money can be used for retail therapy or better alcohol to drown your sorrows between jobs.

That's why you should always work for government (academia or the civil service). Not matter how badly you treat the job (or it treats you), that masochism tango will always be there for you. It's not like Walgreens where it's a 3F relationship.
Respectfully, I think the reality is more moderate than you're describing. The average Medical Information or MSL employee works ~45-50 hours per week. If you're still at the office at 6pm, you're one of the last ones there. The average length that a person stays in one position/company is not much lower than it would be for other corporate jobs, if at all, and this is often by choice. Because some of the work is project-based, deadlines can be variable and there can be busier times, but this is certainly not unmanageable.

OP, I think hospital pharmacy would be a better fit, though it may be useful for you to speak to hospitalists who left for industry, and vice versa, to hear from people who've had both experiences. You can even ring up the hiring manager/recruiter and ask if you could speak to anyone with a hospital background before deciding.
 
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Respectfully, I think the reality is more moderate than you're describing. The average Medical Information or MSL employee works ~45 hours per week. If you're still at the office at 6pm, you're one of the last ones there. The average length that a person stays in one position/company is not much lower than it would be for other corporate jobs, if at all, and this is often by choice. Because some of the work is project-based, deadlines can be variable and there can be busier times, but this is certainly not unmanageable.

OP, I think hospital pharmacy would be a better fit, though it would be useful for you to speak to hospitalists who left for industry, and vice versa, to hear from people who've had both experiences.

Ah, I am speaking more about industry in general, not just MSL. Ask all my industry colleagues who either went the CRO or the startup route after facing closures or strategic repositioning (Kalamazoo, Groton, Durham, SF, LA, even KoP) how much that change was due to "choice." Yeah, MSL's work physician and institutional office hours, and there are specific expectations of them.

I get hired for these gigs because the 9-5 workers just can't handle the regulatory rush, but I keep my day job for a reason. Likewise the management consultants that have to do the repositioning or M&A because the job is just too dirty for the rank and file to handle (as well as outside their abilities, because in order to correct execute those strategies, you can't believe in the place as a prerequisite). It's why it's a contract or short-term matter, I know not to trust industry to do anything that it's not willing to pay for. Going a bit further from my analogy, if you base your relationship in money and not faith, remember that you then work for a living and everything is transactional, it's just business.

Tell me after a major turnover epoch happens (last go-around was 2004 starting with Vioxx) that my position is moderate, and I'll tell you that you are a forgetful winner. Forgetful, that you're one of the few survivors of your group due to the churn, and a winner for being around long enough to tell me that I'm hyperbolic. I've lost too many friends to that churn, and everyone left has maladapted to survival (myself included). The parties and plaques MSL/rep is long in the past, and career scientists are hard to find.
 
Ah, I am speaking more about industry in general, not just MSL. Ask all my industry colleagues who either went the CRO or the startup route after facing closures or strategic repositioning (Kalamazoo, Groton, Durham, SF, LA, even KoP) how much that change was due to "choice." Yeah, MSL's work physician and institutional office hours, and there are specific expectations of them.

I get hired for these gigs because the 9-5 workers just can't handle the regulatory rush, but I keep my day job for a reason. Likewise the management consultants that have to do the repositioning or M&A because the job is just too dirty for the rank and file to handle (as well as outside their abilities, because in order to correct execute those strategies, you can't believe in the place as a prerequisite). It's why it's a contract or short-term matter, I know not to trust industry to do anything that it's not willing to pay for. Going a bit further from my analogy, if you base your relationship in money and not faith, remember that you then work for a living and everything is transactional, it's just business.

Tell me after a major turnover epoch happens (last go-around was 2004 starting with Vioxx) that my position is moderate, and I'll tell you that you are a forgetful winner. Forgetful, that you're one of the few survivors of your group due to the churn, and a winner for being around long enough to tell me that I'm hyperbolic. I've lost too many friends to that churn, and everyone left has maladapted to survival (myself included). The parties and plaques MSL/rep is long in the past, and career scientists are hard to find.
I agree that there's survivorship bias and the cyclical nature of the pharmaceutical industry lends itself to a greater degree of job instability, as your colleagues experienced; I just don't think it's quite the torturous look-for-a-job-every-year ordeal described. Location, firm and function can help contextualize the best decision. (As an aside, 2 firms in particular were responsible for 1/3? of the layoffs in the entire industry in the 2000s, a large proportion coming from R&D)

Furthermore, as you know, in the current environment we're seeing cost reduction and M&A across the board within healthcare as profitability decreases, hospitals included. Owing to this, I think career stability is an important consideration over job stability.
 
I know the retail landscape is changing, but hospital pharmacy (at least for those of us already in) is relatively normal for now. If you were offered an industry job, would you take it? this question is strongly factoring job stability. Which would you choose? or would you stay put.
Where is the location and how much per hour?
 
I have heard people jump from hospital to industry for the lifestyle. They claimed that even hospital pharmacy was going downhill due to budget/staffing cuts and increased workload.
 
If job stability is your main priority, than absolutely NO to taking the industry job. As others have elaborated, industry is probably the least stable pharmacy related job that a person could take.

Of course, for others, they may have different priorities, which would make industry a job they would want to take it. Like any job, there are pros and cons to working industry, you would just have to weight their varying importance in your life.
 
Would this job instability still be an issue for a pharmacist who went back to complete either a 1 or 2 yr fellowship?
 
Would this job instability still be an issue for a pharmacist who went back to complete either a 1 or 2 yr fellowship?

Yes. With a fellowship (residency?), you will be "over-educated" for most jobs, with the jobs in your fellowship few and far between. In a saturated area, it will give you an edge, but if the area is saturated, it will be a slight edge.
 
The job instability in industry seems a bit overstated here. While it's true that people tend to move around companies and job functions more often - let's say once every 3 years - part of it is self-driven because of the advancement opportunities (greater responsibilities/salary), and the other part by necessity (trial failures, divestitures). In addition, if you live in one of the major hubs (NJ, CA, MA, maybe IL/NC), you'll find another job in another firm if the latter happens.

I personally don't know many people who are afraid of losing their jobs and not finding another one right now and don't think that's a hallmark of industry.

If you want more direct patient care, more clinical application, clock in-out lifestyle and the same stable job you could work in for 10+ years (hopefully), then yeah, I'd say hospital would be a better fit.

I'd have to wholeheartedly agree here. At my company, I have yet to meet a single person who has been fired or let go. There are many people in my therapeutic area (oncology) and functional area (early clinical development) who have been here for over a decade, and there are those who have left on their own accord. I think this varies greatly based on your functional area and company. Being in early clinical development with a large company and large pipeline, you're upstream of the affects of most drug trial failures, though the performance and health of the company as a whole definitely affects our stability. With a small company, it is high-risk, high-reward, but with a large company it's certainly less risky with great salary too. And as @Jbrl mentioned, if you are already employed in a major hub, you have plenty of opportunities with other companies there. And it's kind of insane how often you get reached out by recruiters. Since April 1st, I've had 7 recruiters reaching out to see if I was interested in clinical development roles with their clients.

Personally, I find the work more enjoyable and exciting in industry, and I love the employee culture of most companies in industry. In terms of the work I do, it's really freaking cool to have one of my patients with metastatic, relapsed or refractory pancreatic cancer go on our investigational product and experience a duration of stable disease of over 100 weeks in a phase 1 trial. And regarding the culture, I love the flexibility to work from home, the celebrations for new product approvals, the focus on the science, and the highly collaborative environment. There are plenty of things I don't like here, but for me, the pros vastly outweigh the cons, and I prefer this setting to most other traditional pharmacist settings.
 
An industry pharmacist's job depends on a bunch of factors that could change at any time. As my colleague (an ED pharmacist) affectionately puts it, "stupid [patients] keeps hospital pharmacists employed and stupid is unlimited."
 
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(The non-adult entertainment explanation of what I tell my students about working for industry.)

Yes, every four to six months. If industry jobs were treated like partners, they're good for more than a one-night stand but not a relationship that you'd introduce to your family, much less marry. They make for effective trysts from time-to-time. If you know that industry is a high pressure, low stability, and no loyalty job and work it that way, the extra money can be used for retail therapy or better alcohol to drown your sorrows between jobs.

That's why you should always work for government (academia or the civil service). Not matter how badly you treat the job (or it treats you), that masochism tango will always be there for you. It's not like Walgreens where it's a 3F relationship.
You shouldnt "always work for government". I work 7 on 7 off at a 500+ bed not for profit hospital. Love it.
 
You shouldnt "always work for government". I work 7 on 7 off at a 500+ bed not for profit hospital. Love it.

You're right. I should have qualified that with "if you have that skill set and take advantage of the revolving door." .I agree that you can have a happy career in standard Institutional.
 
If I was a hospital pharmacist, I'd take it. But only because I prefer a more intellectually stimulating work environment and new challenges, despite the cons.

Stability in industry as some have said, isn't the greatest but wouldn't affect me in making the jump. Whole divisions and facilities can get cut. Talking to industry employees and there are very few people who've spend their careers in one company. I did meet 1 chemist (despite chem being culled at some companies) and know of a few others who've spent their careers in 1 company. A Rite-Aid district manager told me his pharmacy classmates prided and gloated over their corporate, dynamic, sexy, industry jobs and how they don't have to do yucky retail. Then many of them got laid off and couldn't find work since they're too old with so much fresh new blood always coming in industry and asked him for a retail job. You can imagine he grinned and didn't hire any of them.

A lot also has to do with your role in the company. Some jobs are more stable than others within a company and it depends on the company itself. Luck is also a factor; it's impossible to predict what your job would be like (if it can still exist) decades from now and impossible to know how long you'd stay.

The majority of employees jump around. One person told me in her department, she was there 6 years and that's the longest tenure in her dept. Everyone else was less.The turnover can be quite high for any number of reasons. Layoffs, promotions, new job offers, personal, etc.

That said, some speculate that drug development/biotech could be in a bubble right now with FDA approvals trending down and many venture capitalists, investors pouring money, senior execs at biotechs pocketing the money and jumping ship. Though in certain hubs, if one company goes down, another comes up and you can jump. And you'll never know if your division or company is being bought out. I've seen people go through that, and it can be unsettling and disruptive if you have other life events. Also areas like artificial intelligence can be massively disruptive and is being actively explored due to high development costs and high failure rates. It's still early but I can imagine a lot of traditional industry jobs being trimmed down but probably not completely eliminated in the coming decades. I've heard multiple times from people in industry how they're looking towards Silicon Valley to try and reshape drug industry, as the current ways of doing things are becoming unsustainable/less profitable.

Another factor is also Trump and bipartisan political pressure wanting to promote more generics into market and Scott Gottlieb is pushing for more generic drug/biosimilar approvals to increase generics and bring pricing down. I can't help but imagine that at some point, the American public will be fed up with drug pricing and that some type of drug reform will have to happen sooner or later. Then you've got the Chinese with more CAR-T trials than the US and they're now entering the drug industry game long dominated by US/Europe.

So yeah, drug industry has an easy, bright outlook.
 
I remember being young and idealistic. It makes perfect sense to want a stimulating job relevant to your education. Retail pharmacy is easy to denigrate, and industrial jobs look so satisfying on the surface. Most readers here will hopefully be realistic about the job market and remember how few industry jobs there are relative to retail and hospital.

This is a thread for unicorns.

I have a friend from my class who went industry. One of the smartest people I know. Merck-Medco went under and he has been out of a job for years now. Good thing he planned his retirement well....
 
How did you make that transition? Which company is it? It all depends on what you want to do with your life. I personally would love to do it. Once you get into industry, the possibilities are endless...

Would u list some of the possibilities please? Just for knowledge.
 
The worst places to be in pharmacy right now: Community (but not RIGHT now, but in five years, yes), and Industry (which is probably sooner than 5 years). Huge disruptions are coming, the hospital is the safest place you can be.
 
I'd have to wholeheartedly agree here. At my company, I have yet to meet a single person who has been fired or let go. There are many people in my therapeutic area (oncology) and functional area (early clinical development) who have been here for over a decade, and there are those who have left on their own accord. I think this varies greatly based on your functional area and company. Being in early clinical development with a large company and large pipeline, you're upstream of the affects of most drug trial failures, though the performance and health of the company as a whole definitely affects our stability. With a small company, it is high-risk, high-reward, but with a large company it's certainly less risky with great salary too. And as @Jbrl mentioned, if you are already employed in a major hub, you have plenty of opportunities with other companies there. And it's kind of insane how often you get reached out by recruiters. Since April 1st, I've had 7 recruiters reaching out to see if I was interested in clinical development roles with their clients.

Personally, I find the work more enjoyable and exciting in industry, and I love the employee culture of most companies in industry. In terms of the work I do, it's really freaking cool to have one of my patients with metastatic, relapsed or refractory pancreatic cancer go on our investigational product and experience a duration of stable disease of over 100 weeks in a phase 1 trial. And regarding the culture, I love the flexibility to work from home, the celebrations for new product approvals, the focus on the science, and the highly collaborative environment. There are plenty of things I don't like here, but for me, the pros vastly outweigh the cons, and I prefer this setting to most other traditional pharmacist settings.

what is your job title if you don't mind me asking? Mine is Senior Drug Safety Specialist at a leading CRO (Top3).
 
The worst places to be in pharmacy right now: Community (but not RIGHT now, but in five years, yes), and Industry (which is probably sooner than 5 years). Huge disruptions are coming, the hospital is the safest place you can be.
I presume you're talking about healthcare reform and ML/AI? Can you elaborate on this?
 
I presume you're talking about healthcare reform and ML/AI? Can you elaborate on this?

(Yes to) All of the above, but also, regulatory environment, and innovation schemes, and players are all changing. Firms like Intermountain Health organizing hospital associations together to manufacture generics, JP Morgan/Amazon/Berkshire creating a new healthcare system, potential for medicaid negotiations, these types of things are fluid and are changing now. They’ll affect Pharma sooner rather than later. Healthcare is being disrupted as we speak.
 
(Yes to) All of the above, but also, regulatory environment, and innovation schemes, and players are all changing. Firms like Intermountain Health organizing hospital associations together to manufacture generics, JP Morgan/Amazon/Berkshire creating a new healthcare system, potential for medicaid negotiations, these types of things are fluid and are changing now. They’ll affect Pharma sooner rather than later. Healthcare is being disrupted as we speak.
I think overall, healthcare is rife for cost reductions across the entire spectrum. The confluence of all these factors will trickle down to nearly every stream that pharmacists can swim... for example, if pricing transparency is mandated for healthcare systems, prices will fall due to competition... and hospitals will need to cut it out of our salaries or eliminate headcount to keep pace. They're less likely to cut it out of MD and nurse salaries than they would overhead and non-revenue generating employees. In the same vein, if pharma is mandated to reduce prices because of medicare/medicaid legislation or payer reform, it may reduce the pie for everyone else, particularly drug revenues for hospitals (and our portion correspondingly).

When we refer to ML/AI, it could affect pharmacist scope of practice in the institutional setting as well. It's unclear what role automation will play in our profession. I certainly hope hospital pharmacists are weathered from the storm that the death of labor might bring to it.
 
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I think overall, healthcare is rife for cost reductions across the entire spectrum. The confluence of all these factors will trickle down to nearly every stream that pharmacists can swim... for example, if pricing transparency is mandated for healthcare systems, prices will fall due to competition... and hospitals will need to cut it out of our salaries or eliminate headcount to keep pace. They're less likely to cut it out of MD and nurse salaries than they would overhead and non-revenue generating employees.

When we refer to ML/AI, it could affect pharmacist scope of practice in the institutional setting as well. It's unclear what role automation will play in our profession.

Excellent points... except, it’s clear as hell to me the roll automation will play. Wags and others are literally about to step their games up with strategy and protecting market share. Their ****ty models, and how things have been will need to change right away. Pharmacists in hospitals don’t generate revenue (but protect it), however in the community they can generate tons of revenue. When I was a (community) pharmacist, I was out in the aisles 1/3 of my shift recommending OTC’s. I think when I was closer in practice I heard this is what Walgreens envisions as the future? Well, they better.

But overall, the most important thing protecting pharmacy today is regulations, if the regulations change (by influence of technology, and big players like Amazon), we’re truly screwed.
 
In almost 15 years of industry, I've been with about 10 companies.

Let's put that in perspective though.

Number of times out of those 10 companies I had to actually go through an interview process: 5 - the others were more like internal transitions because of acquisitions.

Number of times I faced layoff uncertainty: 4

Number of times I've actually been laid off: 1 - the severance package and extras (i.e. cashing out stocks, cashing out 4 weeks accumulated PTO, bonus) alone came out to well over a year's salary in 2 lump sums. I paid a lot in taxes, but I found another job within 2 months so the chunk went towards a home down payment and investments.

I love being in the industry. I wouldn't go back to retail unless circumstances made that the new best option. As for hospital, my only experience was about 3 years as a pharmacy intern making iv drips, filling carts, delivering meds, and of course my hospital rotations.

Hospital is definitely more secure and stable. That said, I have yet to see anyone leave industry because of the feeling of instability. In certain functional departments, there is always a demand. If not at one company, then at several others. As you gain more experience, you become more sought after by recruiters. So if you do get laid off, someone else is bound to be interested in picking up your talent.

It's true that people in industry tend to change jobs more often. It's usually voluntary to seek higher compensation, better experience, or more convenience or relocation. One way to look at is - the skills in industry are transferable and allow you to more easily look for opportunities elsewhere. If you want to relocate from East coast to California or even Europe, you don't need to get a pharmacist license. Just look for a biotech or pharma out there who is looking for your skillset.

It's also true that some companies are known for a high level of job security, while others are higher risk higher reward. If you take an opportunity with a biotech startup, you may be looking at either a layoff or a huge windfall from your shares. I've seen both occur. Those who get laid off either go find another startup to take a chance with or may decide they've had enough and stick with a company thats more stable.

Like it's been said, the job instability in industry is overstated. Talented industry professionals are highly sought, and even more so as the years of experience accumulate. It's not easy to find experienced talent who are available for recruitment at any given moment. The most challenging time, in terms of uncertainty, was probably getting and then accepting the first industry offer...the proverbial foot in the door.
 
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I wouldn’t do it. There are far more hospitals in the country than pharmaceutical companies. I prize stability and portability.

And I hate taking work home. Clock out and (proverbially) turn off my phone.


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Some directors forget that once the employee clocks out, they shouldn't be contacted, especially the younger guys. It's just a narcotic discrepancy, it can wait till tomorrow to be resolved. I remember one time they called me freaking out because we had 10 extra Percocet on hand than what the computer said we should have had. (I forgot to hit save when processing a return from a nursing floor so it never added the 10 pills back into the computer's inventory.)
 
What does age have to do with it?

Just something I noticed among younger business owners and bosses. The baby boomers and the generation before them despite all their faults understand that you are not to be contacted under any circumstances when you are off the clock unless you are the on-call person.
 
I work in a hospital and would never ever even consider industry. You are locking your knowledge set into just a couple drugs and thats it.
 
I work in a hospital and would never ever even consider industry. You are locking your knowledge set into just a couple drugs and thats it.
I work in a hospital as well. I would take an industry position in a heartbeat. The QOL is so much better.
 
I work in a hospital as well. I would take an industry position in a heartbeat. The QOL is so much better.
In what way? Have you ever experienced industry? Its terrible and has an extremely high turnover rate.
 
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