Poll: Are you interested in working in the pharmaceutical industry?

[OxToCA]

As the student rep for my MSc in pharmaceutical science, I'm doing a survey on people's career plans due to potential curricula offerings, student groups, etc for my course director and department. Please feel free to add any comments and/or ask me any questions (e.g. how to enter the pharmaceutical industry, job types to search for, etc), as well. Thanks

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[Abby Atwood]

I don't want to work in industry; however, I think it's valuable for pharmacists to be knowledgeable about industry. I work with a lot of industry representatives at my current job.

 

[aar44]

I work for the pharma industry right now in product quality or supporting protein purification of one of the drugs so I do think it is important to know the process on making the drugs. I also want to work for research and development in the future when I get out of pharmacy school, if I do not get an residency since I do like working in Pharma, they just do not pay well for entry level jobs and now they have an hiring freeze right now(they want people that are more experience and PharmDs are perfect). Why do you OP want to work for the pharma industry?

 

[OxToCA]

I work for the pharma industry right now in product quality or supporting protein purification of one of the drugs so I do think it is important to know the process on making the drugs. I also want to work for research and development in the future when I get out of pharmacy school, if I do not get an residency since I do like working in Pharma, they just do not pay well for entry level jobs and now they have an hiring freeze right now(they want people that are more experience and PharmDs are perfect). Why do you OP want to work for the pharma industry?

Thanks for the reply, and I want to work in the pharmaceutical industry for a few reasons. One is that the types of jobs you can get are fun/exciting, like being a medical science liaison (e.g. you get to attend conferences, travel, interact with the important people in the field, etc), two is that they pay well (e.g. 150k plus stock options and incentives), and three is that you can have a side gig like being a clinical assistant professor 20% of the time at a University as well as sit on boards and do independent consulting. In other types of biotech jobs, like being a clinical pharmacologist, you could earn about the same while doing interesting R&D for clinical trials (e.g. biomarkers, imaging, PK/PD).

Since starting my application for Fall 2018 entry, I've also noticed that quite a few pharmacy schools are offering pharmaceutical industry training programs, electives, etc. I'm not sure whether that is due to the pharmacy job market, their awareness of the types of biotech jobs I mentioned, or a combination of both, though.