As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options
Pharmaceuticals Career Advice
SideAffects
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I know I'm taking a long shot here in seeking advice from a forum where the majority of people seem to be artists/IT people, but it certainly can't hurt 
The title sums it up: I'm looking to push my career forward in pharmaceuticals. I have a few years experience in the microbiology lab doing QC at a parenteral plant. In the past few years I have been accelerated by promotions to an Analyst position, and at my current company I see little to no opportunity for future advancement. While my schooling and major work experience is in Microbiology, I am not entirely committed to this field. There are numerous examples of company managers of pharma plants starting out as temporary employee QC technicians and eventually through vertical movement getting the big-wig positions. My manager, for example, had no Microbiology experience prior to his hiring...he simply has played the field in Validation, Production, and QA. If it helps I would like to point out that I have very significant experience in sterile manufacturing. The types of projects I have worked on (due to the nature of working at a start-up facility) speak far more than the time I have put in here. I think although my "years" experience and age might work against me, I am very competant and familiar with Senior-level laboratory testing.
If anyone here has any advice as to the best places to search for a job in this field, or advice on what department would be best for bolstering my resume for the future, I'd greatly appreciate it! Thanks for your time reading and if this thread is doomed to receiving no replys here, so be it. As I said before, I know it's not the best place to look but who knows?
The title sums it up: I'm looking to push my career forward in pharmaceuticals. I have a few years experience in the microbiology lab doing QC at a parenteral plant. In the past few years I have been accelerated by promotions to an Analyst position, and at my current company I see little to no opportunity for future advancement. While my schooling and major work experience is in Microbiology, I am not entirely committed to this field. There are numerous examples of company managers of pharma plants starting out as temporary employee QC technicians and eventually through vertical movement getting the big-wig positions. My manager, for example, had no Microbiology experience prior to his hiring...he simply has played the field in Validation, Production, and QA. If it helps I would like to point out that I have very significant experience in sterile manufacturing. The types of projects I have worked on (due to the nature of working at a start-up facility) speak far more than the time I have put in here. I think although my "years" experience and age might work against me, I am very competant and familiar with Senior-level laboratory testing.
If anyone here has any advice as to the best places to search for a job in this field, or advice on what department would be best for bolstering my resume for the future, I'd greatly appreciate it! Thanks for your time reading and if this thread is doomed to receiving no replys here, so be it. As I said before, I know it's not the best place to look but who knows?
SideAffects on
0
Posts
(I realize this is only a small, and perhaps discouraging part of answering your question)
What area of pharmaceuticals are you interested in and at what location? It sounds like you're interested in management, which depending on what you'd like to oversee will depend on what skill set the employer may be looking for. Are you looking at big pharma or biotetchs in general? Your QC background and a micobiology degree has the potential to open many doors within both biotech and big pharma - QC, QA, Environmental Quality, Product Testing, Large and Small Scale Product Development, Research and Development, etc, etc. It all kind of depends on what you'd like to pursue. Some of them may require going back to school for Masters and Doctorates, but a lot won't.
If you know people in other departments, ask around and see if the stuff they do is of interest to you. If you feel close to your manager, he/she is also a great resource for your development. They've been around the business a bit and may be able to point you in the right direction as well.
rysca
Ok. So I'm kind of tied to the midwest because of my girlfriend/family. I know it's not the greatest area right now, especially compared to the west coast, but I do think that the industry will be moving in more strongly here in the future. Regardless of that, I'm not too particular about where I end up next, but eventually I'd like to be in management. I'd rather not go back to school for Doctorates (or Masters for that matter, as I've seen so far two technicians pass through here with Masters degrees that did jack squat for them) but I would believe you if you told me something like an MBA was necessary. I'd prefer to work for big pharma personally - I know the sterile manufacturing is a huge bonus (kind of the golden boy of production) so I'd rather not throw the status away to work in food or mechanical manufacturing of some kind.
At my current company I have a large amount of experience outside of microbiology: as one of the first employees hired I watched the plant grow from ~25 people to over 200. I've seen and assisted in nearly every quality IQ/OQ that my department could possibly get involved in from our utilities to clean rooms, and assisted in almost all of my lab's equipment validation. I'm not at all trying to post my resume, just giving you a general idea of what kinds of areas I've been exposed to. Validation seems like a great way to get familiar with every side of the industry, but also seems to be very much contracted work rather than a secure full-time kind of thing. I have experience in both Environmental Monitoring and Raw Material/Finished Product Testing here.
It's pretty much the way of the future in terms of drug development.
They cast a shadow like a sundial in the morning light. It was half past 10.
i was more in the drug discovery side of things so not so much help. but as a microbiologist you might be limited in what is available. and be forewarned you might be pigeonholed into qc type work since that is what your experience is in.
don't be afraid to look at small biotech companies. i personally think they are a better work environment
if you have clean room experience, start applying for jobs
maybe even check with reagent manufacturers like sigma and such, they all have need for sterile workers (lol)
what kind of pharma work exactly, because there's chromatography, tangential flow filtration, cell culture, batch culture, QC, QA, validation, materials control
you see where this is going
Other than that, since you're not willing to relocate, I would suggest looking around at the pharmaceutical and biotech companies that have facilities in your area for jobs and submitting resumes to all of them. I have a few friends who work in this field both on the science and business sides and there have been times when a resume submitted years previously has popped in a company's system resulting in an interview/job offer. Also, you should definitely network a lot to get referrals within some of the larger companies. Reach out to other students from your school or co-workers to see what's out there.
Also, if at all possible, you might think about eventually relocating. From what I've seen, the best places to be for this industry is either the northeast or California as there are a lot of firms concentrated in those areas. You might be right about it moving towards the midwest, but it's hard to tell if that happens how quickly it will happen. It really depends on your priorities.
yeah, pharma-plant, not R&D.
I have experience both qualifying and operating in clean rooms and isolators. I know there are manufacturing operator jobs available, but I personally think going from a qc analyst to a production associate would be a step backwards (in regards to working for reagent manufacturers).
I think I did a relatively good job of describing my work experience in a previous post, but if you'd like specifics or to continue that discussion you can feel free to PM me an alternate way to contact you (and that goes for anyone that has feedback)
In my experience, it all comes down to who you can impress. A lot of companies do succession planning in the event someone in management leaves. I'd start applying for management positions as they come up if the job description interests you. If you don't get the position, you can always ask the hiring manager what held you back - many times they'll share that info with you.
The midwest has a lot going for it for iotech/big pharma. The problem with the east/west coast is land is so bloody expensive. It's much cheaper to manufacture drugs in the midwest than it is on the coast and all that cost is passed onto the buyer. I can definitely see more biotechs starting up around the midwest - especially as the industry moves into other genetic areas of drug development.
good luck!
rysca