|
We use a ton of academic journals in our work. poo poo, we even partnered with UCs to push our work forward. I have a feeling I'm slowly turning into a suit instead of a lab coat, help  Any biotech/MBAs in here?PS: loving lol at outsourcing drug discovery- enjoy watching your leads meet a fiery death in phase III after sinking 300 million dollars into them because the lab you outsourced everything to just made up results Bastard Tetris fucked around with this message at 11:07 on May 21, 2011 |
#
?
May 21, 2011 11:01
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2024 01:31 |
|
|
seacat posted:It's a little naive, yeah. Except for the major journals (Science, Nature, JACS, etc) I don't think most scientific academic literature, gets read by anyone outside of that particular circle of academia. Engineering is probably much better since pretty much by definition it is the application of science, but I don't really know. Also, it's NOT free R&D, unless you're satisfied with abstracts only you have to pay for it and the price is not cheap, and then you have to adapt whatever method to whatever you're doing ANYWAY, so you're still paying for R&D  seacat posted:Another problem though is that it's hard to speak of "industry science" in general because there are so many vast very specialized fields.  ", which I can see is a flawed way of thinking about it 
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2011 16:49
|
|
|
It's been a hectic 15 months for me, but I've managed to come out intact and I have found myself at a crossroads. After I finish up this 2nd round of college I will most definitely be gunning for another laboratory job, and I just have some questions about how I can maximize my odds of actually landing one. Note: I posted this story on E/N and got directed here, so I apologize in advance for the emo-autobiography style format. Backstory: I mostly hosed off, skipped classes, and partied during my undergraduate days. Somehow, I managed to actually graduate college with a B.S. in Food Science and a 2.7 GPA (This still kind of blows my mind). Right out of college I took the first job offer for an entry level management position at a french-fry plant. It paid pretty well, but it was extremely stressful and there were a couple job duties where I performed substandard (mainly giving difficult assignments to my subordinates and dealing with all the random clusterfucks that would pop up). My boss tried to give me ample coaching and feedback, but after 9 months he determined that I was not a good fit for the position and terminated me. Next job was a QA microbiologist for a creamery. I liked this job infinitely more than the previous one even though it only paid 70% my former wage. After being employed for about 5 months I made two noticeable newbie mistakes in the course of a week and my boss regrettably had to terminate me. If I had to guess I would say that he was pressured by his boss to do so (this was during a period of major turmoil at the company, and it's possible that they were making an example out of me). I have remained on good terms with everyone there and my old boss even wrote me a letter of recommendation for grad school. After this, I spent an entire calendar year living off the dole and looking for another food science job. After losing hope for months on end, I re-enrolled at another state college in order to pursue a second bachelor's degree. This is where I stand now. My questions are as follows... 1.) How useful is having a second Bachelor's degree? All the random biology credits I needed for my food science degree put me about 60% complete for a B.S. in Biology at this school. During my unemployment I applied to several graduate schools but I wasn't accepted anywhere and I came to the conclusion that my lovely grades were poisoning my chances for success. I'm enjoying taking classes again and learning a shitload, but I can't help but be concerned that a second B.S. won't do me any good in the job hunt. I'm hovering at around a 3.5 GPA this time through and I'll be graduating by this time next year. 2.) How useful are minor degrees? I'm 3 credits away from a minor in Chemistry, and I can probably get a minor in computer science (programming) by the time I am due to get my second B.S. Getting this additional training seems intuitively like a good idea to me, but I've also heard from friends and family that minor degrees are basically worthless. 3.) How useful is my TA job? Earlier this year I was able to land a gig as a TA for the chemistry department. I was extremely grateful to close the 1+ year gap on my resume with an actual bonafide job, but I'm worried that potential employers might just dismiss the TA position as something trivial. 4.) How important is it to graduate cum laude? Obviously I know that school performance can have long-term consequences and I dedicate practically every hour I can to studying/projects. However, it's possible that I might have the opportunity to get a 2nd job or overload myself with courses that provide training with cutting edge laboratory techniques. The extra time crunch would definitely have an impact on my grade, and I'm very curious what the objective value of graduating with honors is.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2011 06:33
|
|
|
Harold Ramis Drugs posted:1.) How useful is having a second Bachelor's degree? All the random biology credits I needed for my food science degree put me about 60% complete for a B.S. in Biology at this school. During my unemployment I applied to several graduate schools but I wasn't accepted anywhere and I came to the conclusion that my lovely grades were poisoning my chances for success. I'm enjoying taking classes again and learning a shitload, but I can't help but be concerned that a second B.S. won't do me any good in the job hunt. I'm hovering at around a 3.5 GPA this time through and I'll be graduating by this time next year. Short answer: 1. Depends. If you honestly made a huge mistake with your first degree I don't think that anyone would hold it against you assuming you can explain yourself. Your experience (well, except the job you got fired from) will be a much huger plus than any second bachelor's however. Why did you major in "food science" and why aren't you going to make the same mistake again and how would you pay for it? If you're going for another BS, do better than Biology. Biology majors are a dime a dozen, our lab is flooded with them and they usually don't know dick. The better choice would be grad school but it seems you're not having much luck with that. 2. Completely worthless. Even what you majored in doesn't matter as much as you think. Minors matter even less (i.e. not at all). If you are worried about jobs, major in chemistry or CS even if it takes longer and costs more, because nobody gives a gently caress about your minor besides you. Actually if you are worried about jobs, stay the gently caress away from science and do engineering, accounting or nursing, or trade school. 3. Completely worthless. Even academics don't care much about your TA job. I have never been asked about my TAing at a job interview, ever. I guess it could close the gap, sure, but if you can do something useful, do that instead. 4. Mostly worthless, nobody really cares. Do whatever it takes to pass and intern your rear end off and learn useful poo poo. That said, I have questions for you! What exactly do you learn majoring in "food science"? I haven't heard of anyone from a US school doing this major. Is it like nutrition or something? That said I work with a "food science" major from China and while she doesn't know what the gently caress is going on with regards to chemistry she can do gruntwork and follow directions quite well. What courses do you take in that major exactly? seacat fucked around with this message at 09:08 on May 23, 2011 |
|
#
?
May 23, 2011 08:54
|
|
|
seacat posted:[Harold, if] you're going for another BS, do better than Biology. Biology majors are a dime a dozen, our lab is flooded with them and they usually don't know dick. The better choice would be grad school but it seems you're not having much luck with that. You've said that minors are irrelevant, do you know what the case is for grad school? I've been told they're pretty pointless unless specifically relevant* to what you're doing, and even then it's really just to show (probable) competency. I'm thinking a math minor would be helpful in that it would suggest a certain a degree of mathematical literacy. *As in, I want to save every marmot in Siberia, so I minored in GIS And Remote Sensing! Radd McCool fucked around with this message at 11:56 on May 23, 2011 |
|
#
?
May 23, 2011 11:51
|
|
|
seacat posted:What exactly do you learn majoring in "food science"? I haven't heard of anyone from a US school doing this major. Is it like nutrition or something? That said I work with a "food science" major from China and while she doesn't know what the gently caress is going on with regards to chemistry she can do gruntwork and follow directions quite well. What courses do you take in that major exactly? They have this major in the US. A friend of mine just graduated and got a job as a food safety (basically QA) at a canned food place. Basically just making sure the food you get is safe and up to regulation, etc. Here is the curriculum for it a my school: Link
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2011 14:00
|
|
|
What's the job market like for a PhD dropout? I have my BSc in microbiology, an MRes that I got for free with the PhD, and one out of three years of the PhD (UK russell group if it matters). I'm so close to dropping out. My project doesn't make any sense to me 
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2011 14:43
|
|
|
My PIN is 4826 posted:What's the job market like for a PhD dropout? I have my BSc in microbiology, an MRes that I got for free with the PhD, and one out of three years of the PhD (UK russell group if it matters). Don't drop out. Talk to your supervisor about the direction of the project and where you feel it's going. An MRes is almost totally worthless.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2011 14:50
|
|
|
Agreed with Sci. Talk to your adviser and figure out what to do about your project. Quitting your PhD should be pretty much a last resort at this point. Cross-posting from the TPS thread... As I type this post, over 75% of my department is missing. They were assigned to a 3-day "Continuous Improvement" Seminar from Tuesday through Thursday, thus removing all potential for work this week. They are being bombarded with horrific powerpoint slides right now, I expect. Meanwhile, we're going into yet another reorganization in the next few months, with a preliminary casualty estimate of 30% of the department. Management is literally wasting a week of our entire department's time to complete a training program for people who either will not work here or will work in a completely different department.  Meanwhile, I'm not invited to this meeting. Why not? No idea. I deal directly with manufacturing and supply chain on a regular basis as part of my job, and that's where the majority of C.I initiatives actually matter. They don't matter to the research-focused divisions, who are the ones who are having to sit through that crap. I swear, nothing here ever makes sense.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2011 15:38
|
|
|
I'll hang in there for the first year assessment and see where it goes. The assessment panel is after all here to help me, right? 
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2011 17:13
|
|
|
Whelp, I've taken a job in a business unit of our plant operations group. No more lab work for me!
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2011 17:27
|
|
|
My PIN is 4826 posted:I'll hang in there for the first year assessment and see where it goes. The assessment panel is after all here to help me, right? Absolutely. Your committee are there to help you get a good PhD. Remember that it makes supervisors look really terrible if their students drop out. It's in everyone's best interests to make sure you succeed in your PhD.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2011 18:14
|
|
|
Sundae posted:I swear, nothing here ever makes sense. I met six of your "co-workers" this week. Two guys were from your R&D group up in Boston, a couple from Michigan?, and two from NY who were very much IT side instead of lab. It was at our customer conference, three of them gave presentations on our LIMS or on working with us in general. They were all pretty cool. I'll just throw it back out there for the thread, if anyone has questions surrounding LIMS/ELN/Acronyms/etc ask away and I'll get you an answer!
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2011 19:45
|
|
|
My PIN is 4826 posted:I'm so close to dropping out. My project doesn't make any sense to me I have some links that might interest you- Another student wrestling with the same question (she's stuck it out I believe) http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3255918 Lots of other grad students commiserating about grad school old http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3260704 new http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3364373 Also my opinion- there are some for whom dropping out is a good thing, but most grad students consider it at some point and most are better off sticking it out.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2011 16:34
|
|
|
Lyon posted:I met six of your "co-workers" this week. Tell them hi for me, because I certainly haven't seen them in a while. I am the only person on my entire floor. I have not seen anyone but the janitor in four hours.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2011 17:21
|
|
|
Sundae posted:Tell them hi for me, because I certainly haven't seen them in a while. I am the only person on my entire floor. I have not seen anyone but the janitor in four hours. That reminds me of those stories where someone buys a condo only to find out they're the only one left in the building. Is your place being overrun by hooligans yet? Thinking about barricading the doors?
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2011 17:32
|
|
|
Nah, it's just a combination of 75% of the department being at that mandatory (for them) C.I seminar for three days and most of the remaining 25% saying "hey, let's work from home! woo!" while they're gone. I've been just leaving early and hitting the gym since I'm stuck waiting for people who are at that seminar.  quote:PS: loving lol at outsourcing drug discovery- enjoy watching your leads meet a fiery death in phase III after sinking 300 million dollars into them because the lab you outsourced everything to just made up results I missed this edit earlier. I completely agree with you. In fact, I'm pretty sure (unofficially speaking of course) that this is exactly what happened to one of our high-profile failures early last year. Even when it's not fake data, shoddy documentation can shoot down a project too. I have had a batch record for API come back from a contract manufacturer in India with the API-added amount hand written to a value that was FAR too big (like 600% potency for the batch), crossed out without any signature or notation, and replaced with a number that would have been only about 75% potency. Needless to say, a batch record like that is an absolute nightmare. I would pay good money to have seen the faces on our QA/QC compliance guys when they opened the PDF after I forwarded it to them. Heads probably exploded. I know mine hit the desk a few times. Sundae fucked around with this message at 17:56 on May 25, 2011 |
|
#
?
May 25, 2011 17:52
|
|
|
Sundae posted:Needless to say, a batch record like that is an absolute nightmare. I would pay good money to have seen the faces on our QA/QC compliance guys when they opened the PDF after I forwarded it to them. Heads probably exploded. I know mine hit the desk a few times. My head is exploding just reading that account. loving christ!
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2011 18:01
|
|
|
The worst part is trying to track all that poo poo back to the source when they aren't even part of your company. You can't just show up at the gates of the plant and say "show me your paperwork". Also, a correction: That should be API-added to a batch of drug product, not batch of API. It'd be awfully easy to detect if it was just pure API. 
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2011 18:12
|
|
|
Can I get some feedback from people working as ~official~ Medical Laboratory Technologists? They are accredited up here in Canada, not sure about the states.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2011 20:09
|
|
|
Oh man... I've got a great one. Holy poo poo, the fun never stops here. In a PM to polyfractal, I talked a bit about how my company loves to develop software in-house for "security" reasons. Of course, this backfires an awful lot because we aren't exactly software developers, but we're also not exactly known for thinking things through either. There is one piece of software which we DID contract from someone else. Our electronic lab notebooks are through a very major server / database company. We're supposed to have support for unlimited lab notebook IDs, and they all had to be able to support up to a certain number (let's call it 10,000) experiments before it called a notebook "full" and assigned the scientist a new notebook. So, you might have notebook 102530-9024, meaning experiment 9024 in notebook 102530. Makes sense, right? This way, we could scale to the millions and millions of experiments that will end up in here over the next decade or so before something better comes along / makes its way through our bureaucracy. There's a bug. The max experiment count (10K) was assigned as the global maximum experimental count. After the 10,000th experiment was added to the system, the entire thing seized up and refused to accept any more entries. Nobody in the entire company can document experiments in the electronic system until the company fixes their code. Those old paper notebooks we just had confiscated to make sure we complied with the new electronic system would be really helpful right around now. I've got a lot of napkin scribbles to transcribe.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2011 20:28
|
|
|
Sundae posted:Oh man... I've got a great one. Holy poo poo, the fun never stops here. So now that people are gone, can you hear the screams from QC/QA, or are they gone as well?
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2011 21:10
|
|
|
Sundae posted:Oh man... I've got a great one. Holy poo poo, the fun never stops here. Where do you work, Veridian Dynamics?
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2011 00:10
|
|
|
Eunabomber posted:Where do you work, Veridian Dynamics? Not quite. PFE. The concept is the same, though.
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2011 01:46
|
|
|
Radd McCool posted:I'm double majoring in biochem and biology with a math minor. Have you seen applicants along those lines, with a more specialized degree? Do they fare better than the general bio majors? Surprisingly enough, I haven't run across any biochem majors applying to our positions. I didn't say this, sorry, but I am a QC(mainly HPLC/GC/IR, analytical) chemist (BS in Chem) and I work for a cosmetics/food/nutritional supplements light manufacturer (yeh weird combo I know, but we really do make all three), so maybe the techniques just don't mesh at all for our lab or something. I'm sure if you asked someone that works at a Forensics lab or a genetic disease screening lab or a sperm bank that person would interact with a lot more biochemistry majors  I am also tempted to say that it's also because most Biochemistry majors tend to be the fo-real-science people and go on to grad school (and hence I don't know them because most people I work and network with just got a BS), whereas a lot higher proportions of Bio and Chem majors stop at the bachelors level (Bio because they have a mental breakdown when 99.99% of them don't get into med school, Chem because you can actually make a living (not a fantastic one, but a living :P!) with a BS level chemistry job). But that would be completely anectodal to say that on my part.Our lab has extremely high turnover (I've seen no less than 35 people working here in about 2 years). Of those people, about 15% were actual chemistry majors, 60% people with some sort of biology major, and 25% people with some weird and/or completely inapplicable degree like food science or theoretical astrophysics or double major in pharmacology and French poetry or something. The chemistry major people blow everyone out of the water (I'm truly, honestly not being biased here, there have been about 5 chemists here including myself and they all kicked serious rear end, although I'm sure there are lovely ones out there). The bio people are mostly useless but what do you expect, they haven't really studied the principles and most just complain that they didn't get into med school/that they have to work this lovely job. The weird degrees people don't know the principles either but they can generally be trained well enough to not be a nuisance (maybe they're happy they just got a job). YMMV I can see how someone in school (or a crappy career counselor lol) might make the case that your math minor would suggest mathematical literacy. In reality, your math minor is completely useless except as recreation to you if you really like math. Now, if you had a minor in computation coupled with actual computation experience (like undergrad research, or internships), that would be much better at suggesting literacy in a useful profession. I do not think a minor of any sort would help for grad school unless two candidates were COMPLETELY IDENTICAL IN EVERY WAY and one had a minor in whatever and one did not. A double major would help, e.g. someone with a double bachelor's in biochemistry and CS would make a fantastic candidate for a graduate program in bioinformatics. However I am no grad school admissions counselor, and have not gone to graduate school, although I do know, correspond with, and used to work with a fuckton of graduate students, so take my advice with a grain of salt. From what I understand the things that matter most to graduate programs are (in this order): (1) Undergraduate research -- how long you did it, what you did research in and what papers you published (2) Undergraduate GPA/courses, especially graduate courses you took as an undergrad, (2) GREs, (4) everything else. Yes, there is a tie for second. I'm not meaning to rail on you guys or anything, I hope I don't come off that way, but you asked. It's just that I think your time (and money) is probably better spent -- all a minor really says is "meh, I took a few extra classes", and some might even see it as "meh, I'm kinda interested in adding this to my resume but I too lazy to actually do undergraduate research in it and would rather just take a few extra classes". If you want to try to get into grad school, hit that undergrad research and try to take some graduate-level classes (if your school allows it, I do not know of any that don't). If you want to get a "real" job, I'll give you the advice I give everyone: (a) accept that the economy right now SUCKS rear end and nobody is hiring and EVERYONE has been laid off and so prepare that you might not be doing exactly what you love and might even be doing something you hate and (b) rather than focusing on what coursework your degree requires, focus on what industry you want to work in (manufacturing? pharmaceuticals? health care? forensics?), hit up everyone you know and everyone they know until you find some people in that industry, get them to tell you what techniques are the most used, and find a lab, either working part time doing undergrad research, and/or preferably an industry lab where you can intern, where you will learn and master those skills. Real world science and real world jobs in general at any career stage are not nearly as compartmentalized as the university world where you can pick-and-choose-and-mix-and-match what you do to get the ideal experience. Academic jobs on the other hand are not as "controlled" by market forces - if you are successful (ding tenure-track), you will generally have a lot more freedom to pick what you want to do and what you are interested in researching and you will rarely have to wear a suit and tie or drum up business or watch your language or shave, rather being forced to do what the market demands (although there will be great pressure for funding). You just have to talk to people in both to decide what you want. There are fantastic labs in academia and incredibly lovely labs in academia and fantastic labs/companies outside academia and INCREDIBLY lovely labs/companies outside academia. I know people in academia that are miserable and hate it and people there that couldn't be happier and can't imagine doing anything else and I know people in industry that are miserable and hate every tedious repetitive dealingwithfuckingmanagement day of their lives and also people in industry (like myself) who love their jobs despite whatever insanity THE COMPANY lays upon them every day. Focus on what you will be doing every day (this is why I stress talk to people that work in an industry/graduate students in a certain academic field), and go from there. The bulk of my 2+ yrs of undergrad research was in organic synthesis and I was shooting to be a supermegamoneymaking bigshot chemist in BigPharma after my bachelors, with my extreme bachelors level knowledge or round bottom flasks and fractional distillation and poo poo, than I learned that like 3% of industry jobs are in organic synthesis and they only hire PhDs LOL. So I shifted my focus a bit and switched to something else I have a passion for, instrumental analysis & repair, and it's (solely) due to that experience with my university that I have a non-retail/food service job now and I genuinely do love my job. It's a complicated world out there
seacat fucked around with this message at 09:02 on May 27, 2011 |
|
#
?
May 27, 2011 08:38
|
|
|
A friend of mine just travels the west coast showing labs how to use their microplate readers and he says it's the best job he's ever had
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2011 08:59
|
|
|
So, uh, I guess you guys get a ton of these, but I was wondering what kind of places offer work to someone still working on their undergrad (BS chem). I don't really want anything fancy, just some experience in my field. So far I've just been applying to hospital labs. Are there any more "unexpected" places with labs?
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2011 10:05
|
|
|
Jr. posted:So, uh, I guess you guys get a ton of these, but I was wondering what kind of places offer work to someone still working on their undergrad (BS chem). I don't really want anything fancy, just some experience in my field. So far I've just been applying to hospital labs. Are there any more "unexpected" places with labs? My food safety lab hires summer
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2011 14:24
|
|
|
Jr. posted:So, uh, I guess you guys get a ton of these, but I was wondering what kind of places offer work to someone still working on their undergrad (BS chem). I don't really want anything fancy, just some experience in my field. So far I've just been applying to hospital labs. Are there any more "unexpected" places with labs? This is one area where the big pharma companies actually are kinda awesome. We pay our interns anywhere from $17 to $25 an hour right now (even more if you're working on your PhD -- my last PhD-track intern got $37 an hour), and we seem to have plenty of them even now that we're imploding. More interns than regular workers, sometimes. I highly recommend, if you have any interest in pharmaceuticals at all, applying for internships at the big guys. Just don't apply there for real work later. Hospital labs, food safety, biomed companies like Cordis / some of the J&J sub-companies. Try USAJobs.gov and look for internships and student work at the CDC, NIH, and USDA sections. Those won't pay well (if at all) at internship level, but they're possibilities. Check for summer internships at universities, actually. Some places do those too.
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2011 14:57
|
|
|
Sundae posted:This is one area where the big pharma companies actually are kinda awesome. We pay our interns anywhere from $17 to $25 an hour right now (even more if you're working on your PhD -- my last PhD-track intern got $37 an hour), and we seem to have plenty of them even now that we're imploding. More interns than regular workers, sometimes. I highly recommend, if you have any interest in pharmaceuticals at all, applying for internships at the big guys. Just don't apply there for real work later. How does anyone in a PhD program have time for an internship? Sundae posted:Not quite. PFE. The concept is the same, though. Oh, you poor bastard. http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2011/05/26/pfizers_brave_new_medchem_world.php
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2011 21:14
|
|
|
Eunabomber posted:How does anyone in a PhD program have time for an internship? I have a question! Assume we have several potential drug candidates, small scale tests on mice (academics level) have been published and results are promising. Now for a (relatively big) company - is it expensive for them to do the pre-clinical testing and optimization stuff (pharmacokinetics, formulations) for a bunch of those? What else has to be done before a company would consider registering it as "Investigational New Drug"? Is the threshold very high? I'm asking because we're writing a small case study/advice for a company as a project - we found some nice things in the literature, but I don't know if it's feasible to tell the company to go ahead and have some chemists work on all of these potential candidates to figure out which they want to push further (phase I), or if it's so expensive that we should stick to just 1 or 2. Any input is greatly appreciated!
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2011 23:47
|
|
|
Eunabomber posted:How does anyone in a PhD program have time for an internship? Yep. Fortunately, I'm in a bizarre enough subset of pharm development that I'm safe for probably another year or so. I don't have much of a long-term future, but I'm hoping to at least last until after my wedding/honeymoon as a convenience. Worst case scenario, I'll have a pretty nice severance package coming my way.As for the PhD thing, I have no idea. I've noticed that they're all six-month assignments, rather than "summer" assignments, so it's nothing to do with their programs sending them home for the summers or anything like that. (I remember some of the programs at CU did that; they had no budget for stipends or tuition coverage for summer sessions, so they effectively ran an academic year unless the lab was rolling in money and could afford to pay their students out of that budget.) I assumed, on the basis of the 6-mo assignments, that it had to be some sort of industry-work requirement or something. Quite a few were from Purdue, also.
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2011 05:29
|
|
|
Eunabomber posted:How does anyone in a PhD program have time for an internship? That's another thing- your IP is hosed if you outsource to a BRIC country. One of our old C-level execs took off to China and uses our screening technology with a shitload of workers spending days manually pipetting and selecting things my automated platforms do in an hour. But hey, they don't have OSHA in China!
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2011 05:34
|
|
|
So I just have to ask something here. Back in the 1990s/2000s the big drug companies were coming out with drugs all over the place and have since slowed down to almost nothing. Is that because there was some huge breakthrough with computers that enabled a bunch of then low hanging fruit to be picked, or did the management simply ride the wave and forget to make basic investments in R&D and now they're hosed? I just wonder if smaller companies that invest in R&D (like Seattle's Dendreon) will over the next decade start to overtake the market because they're spending the money or if the issue is something more fundimental.
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2011 07:14
|
|
|
I've heard that it was a bunch of other tech in the biologic area like gene mapping and such came along in the late 80's and into the 90's which created a lot new drug targets, and the advancement of computers at the time helped to develop ways to quickly ID drug candidates. Not sure if it's 100% true, but it does make sense. I've also occasionally heard that it was changes in the FDA that sorta resulted in a bulge of approvals, and that we're back to historical norms. This could also be a factor. I don't think it's a cut back on R&D spend, but I do think a lot of management was very misguided during that time. It was the first time that blockbuster drugs came into existence, and a lot people just saw $$. There was definitely a large amount of greed, and perception that we could keep making these blockbuster drugs forever. 10 years ago, my upper management's philosophy was that if the drug wasn't going to make $1 billion/year or more, it wasn't worth developing. That plan resulted in a huge hole in our pipeline a few years later, which we are just now recovering from by focusing on smaller markets that don't have good treatments (therefore faster approval and easier to capture market share without as much marketing cost) and in-licensing like crazy. I wouldn't be surprised if all the pharma consolidation over the last decade has overall reduced the number as well, as it hasn't been shown that larger companies are actually any better a drug discovery and there are just less companies out there now. Basically, I think it was a confluence of things that made it easy to develop drugs for a while, and management changed the business on the assumption that the gravy train would last forever. Once things changed, we're seeing the fallout now as companies panic and try to cut costs because there billion dollar blockbusters are all coming off patent, and they have nothing to replace it. Small companies probably won't start to take over the market though. It's just way to expensive for a small company to pay for clinical trials and go through the late stage clinical approvals, so, they inevitably have to partner with a bigger company. Once a small company develops a good portfolio or technology, and has a working relationship with a big company, they become an acquisition target and the money can be really hard to resist. I guess a small company could grow their business and become a big player, but their management would have to be really disciplined about growing the business and not decide to just cash out. gninjagnome fucked around with this message at 12:30 on May 28, 2011 |
|
#
?
May 28, 2011 12:26
|
|
|
gninjagnome posted:I guess a small company could grow their business and become a big player, but their management would have to be really disciplined about growing the business and not decide to just cash out. This is a good point here, as I know of a guy that would do really well at a smaller firm, get bought out and join the big firm, start another small firm with guys he knew and so on and so forth. It's not like he didn't work hard, but the whole thing seemed wasteful. It was like watching skyscrapers being built only to be looted for the copper wiring.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2011 00:52
|
|
|
Bellams posted:Can I get some feedback from people working as ~official~ Medical Laboratory Technologists? They are accredited up here in Canada, not sure about the states. I am an MLS! Just got my degree in August 2010 and started working a week later.  I wrote up something on the first page of this thread, but feel free to ask any questions. I work in the microbiology part of the lab, if it makes a difference.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2011 07:40
|
|
|
Solkanar512's "Red Flag of the Day" Listed multiple times as a required duty in a job listing: "Find missing specimens." I think you have issues if you're bragging about how awesome your lab is and at the same time hiring a lab tech to find your missing work.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2011 22:08
|
|
|
Yeah, stay far, far away. That reminds me of Sandoz's production manager position, which was hiring for someone to, as per the phone interview, "handle an existing, multi-volume backlog of quality events". Yeah, no thanks. That would both mean that 1) their production methodologies suck horribly, and 2) that as soon as that backlog is settled out, they're going to cut people. Plus I'd have to live in the midwest. No thanks. In other news, I've been informed that I'm as safe as I can be with regard to my company's upcoming layoffs. If there are any slots at all for laboratory scientists in the new department, I've got one. It's pretty ridiculous that upper management is actually debating having literally zero scientists, but the general consensus is that it's a pretty slim chance that they'll actually do that. SOMEONE here has to be able to do little feasibility checks on projects before we ship them to India and sign contracts, and it sure as gently caress won't be the managers. I am probably safe.
Sundae fucked around with this message at 13:12 on May 31, 2011 |
|
#
?
May 31, 2011 13:10
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2024 01:31 |
|
|
Sundae posted:
I'm beginning to believe that you actually have a job at the Hotel California. As far as the jobs go, why don't the major job listings sites allow for comments? I'd love to mock the folks that can't keep a quality system or require management level certifications for entry level jobs.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2011 14:18
|
|