Forum:Pros and cons to do biomedical research in pharmaceutical company
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4.8 years ago
Shicheng Guo ★ 9.5k

Hi All,

Let's have a discussion about Pros and Cons to do biomedical research in a pharmaceutical company.

Pros:

  1. Don't need to waste lots of time to write proposals for funding support.
  2. You can focus on research and usually, the resource is better than University.
  3. High salary and the better life.

Cons:

  1. Should focus on the field where the company is interested in.
  2. Not easy to publish (I am not sure whether it is correct or not?)
  3. Very hard to come back to academia (Still have the possibility if have continuous publication)

Please go on, maybe other question will be:

  1. How to continue to publish the work in the pharmaceutical company?
  2. How to have a successful career in pharmaceutical companies compared with academia?
industry career academia • 1.5k views
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I don't know if all of these are necessarily true. For example, "high salary and the better life" can be easily quantified (those metrics definitely exist in other contexts). It would be great to see the numbers.

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I'm pretty sure pharma researchers have to write proposals to justify funding what they want to do. It's not like these companies hand out wads of cash to every PI to do whatever, or that pharma never says "Nope, we are done researching this area, it's just not working out". But it might be a little less cutthroat or do-or-die as it is in academia.

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4.8 years ago

From talking to many people in industry, some of these are patently false:

Pros:

1, Don't need to waste lots of time to write proposals for funding support.

As others have mentioned, you will still have to fight for funding for your department/lab/team. Companies have budgets, and you still need to justify that what you're doing is bringing value to the company. Sometimes, killing a project that's not going to result in anything is still "creating value", so this isn't always cut and dry.

2, You can focus on research and usually, the resource is better than University.

Again, from anecdotal evidence, there is still plenty of administrative red tape and if you're in a management position, a large part of your responsibilities include managing your team. Listening to anyone who's ever tried to get a drug FDA-approved makes trying to get an MTA in place or submitting a big grant seem like small fries.

Generally, yes, you have more resources in an industry position. But academia collaborates with industry all the time to do things that one or the other isn't able to do on their own. In addition, large consortium-based projects are becoming more and more common.

3, High salary and the better life.

This again depends. It's true that the money is generally better in industry, but a full professor salary isn't something to bite your thumb at (though it varies wildly by location). If you're considering getting a post-doc or heading straight to industry, then yeah, the discrepancy is usually much more stark. The "better life" phrase is also highly subjective. I've talked to people who still go into industry and work 80+ hours a week, especially at startups or if they're in a leadership position. Deadlines still exist, and they can often have a huge impact on fundraising for your company (and you having to fire employees or not). While this seems to less often be the case at huge pharma corps (again, from personal anecdotes of people at companies like Novartis, Genentech, etc), these positions can often carry a lot of stress as well. There are PIs who manage a healthy work life balance as well.

Cons:

1, Should focus on the field where the company is interested in.

This is true, but good companies generally listen when you have an idea that could provide value. There are still positions that provide some creativity, though it's not nearly so free as academia (even though you still have to get funding for your ideas there).

2, Not easy to publish (I am not sure whether it is correct or not?)

This just isn't true. Many people in industry publish frequently. While there may be cases where IP needs to be protected, many companies promote publishing of basic science discoveries, as they benefit from academic research and collaborations as well.

3, Very hard to come back to academia (Still have the possibility if have continuous publication)

I've heard varying accounts of this. While most have generally said that it is tougher to return to academia, it's certainly not impossible if you've still been ambitious and published while in an industry position. Having academic collaborations helps, apparently.

1, How to continue to publish the work in the pharmaceutical company?

This is probably something that should be discussed during the interview process if it's something you are sure you want to do.

2, How to have a successful career in pharmaceutical companies compared with academia?

In the end, science is science. You still need to be able to learn quickly, focus on tangible results that provide value (or additional avenues of research), communicate your results, and deal with people. I think the skills that make you successful in one or the other overlap very highly.

Big grain o' salt notice: Basically all of this is from talking to ~20 people that either made the jump to/went straight into industry (ranging from startups to international biotech/pharma). Nothing here is fact, they are just generalizations.

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