Bioscience Essentials for Industry Professionals

Here's another course offered by the UC Berkeley Extension titled, "Bioscience Essentials for Industry Professionals."

This intensive course provides a focused introduction to the fundamental concepts and principles of biology, presented in the context of their relevance and application to the bioscience industry. Students develop the basic conceptual framework and vocabulary necessary to communicate effectively with technical specialists within their companies and to comprehend the basic scientific concepts in proposals, prospectuses, and market and technical assessment reports. Additionally, you explore current techniques and technologies while developing an appreciation of the process and the challenge of turning scientific discoveries into successful products.

Mary Alice Yund, Ph.D., named Honored Instructor in 2006, has more than 15 years of academic research experience in developmental genetics at UC Berkeley. She has taught genetics at UC Berkeley and California State University East Bay and genetics, developmental biology, functional genomics, and an introduction to biotechnology at UC Berkeley Extension.

Click here for more information.

Serve on an advisory board

One way to gain some experience in the business side of health care (also known as the health care industry) is to serve on the advisory board of various types of companies and organizations. In the past, I've served on a few different boards and I've always enjoyed having the opportunity to guide companies with strategic business decisions. In some cases, your expert opinion could dramatically alter the course of an organization. Some physician executives have created independent consulting businesses after serving on several advisory boards and getting recognized as an "expert in the field."

What types of advisory boards seek physicians? Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Consulting firms. Health information technology companies. Non-profit and public health organizations. Venture capital and investment banking firms.

Transitioning Pharmaceutical Professionals to Medical Device Professionals

Here's a course that focuses on "Transitioning Pharmaceutical Professionals to Medical Device Professionals." Given all the changes occurring in the biopharma industry, there are many pharmaceutical professionals who are in transition and they are looking for jobs. Will the medical device industry be more promising?

Here's some information about this web seminar course:

This course assists study managers, program managers, CRAs, and other pharma professionals in learning more about the differences between pharma and medical device studies, including objectives, protocol creation, and quality systems regulations. The course will help professionals learn about the most popular medical device therapeutic areas, the engineering component/ R&D/preclinical, as well as the technical procedures of those therapeutic areas.

 Learning Objectives:

* Identify the differences between pharmaceutical and medical device studies
* Identify the key regulations of medical devices
* Explain the QSR process

To learn more about this course, click here. The course registration fee is $695.

Barnett International is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education as a provider of continuing pharmacy education.

How do you "break in" when you lack experience?

Almost every non-clinical job description will indicate that you must have some experience in that field. After all, it's extremely rare to find a true "entry level" position in pharma, biotech, consulting, health IT, etc. However, the reality is that everyone has to "break in" from somewhere. Everyone starts by having zero industry experience. So, how do you get started? Do you need to start really low and then slowly climb the corporate ladder? Start with some freelancing assignments? Do some independent consulting?

This is where I have found that personalized career coaching can be extremely beneficial. Why? Because you need guidance on this topic if you fit into that category of someone who lacks significant industry experience. Career counselors and coaches can help you find suitable ways to break into certain industries. You need to know how to create a career map that outlines both short-term and long-term goals. What are feasible expectations? What types of salaries should you expect to receive? How can you transition from one industry to the next?

For instance, you may spend 1-2 years in pharma and realize that you don't want to build a career in pharma. Can you transition easily into health IT? What about medical consulting?

What if you gain 1-2 years as a medical writer? What can you do then? Are you stuck as a medical writer?

What's the best way to enter pharma? Sales rep? MSL? Drug safety?

Once you ask one or two questions, you quickly realize that there are so many additional questions that quickly follow. To find answers to your questions, consult a career counselor/coach or mentor. Discuss these issues with people who have personally gone through these types of transitions and who have helped others with these career decisions. Find a Non-Clinical Physician Mentor

Salary and gender in the healthcare industry

Over the next few days, I'll be writing about salaries in the world of pharma/biotech and in the worlds of medical communications companies, marketing/ad agencies, etc. The data is from the 2009 Medical Marketing & Media (MM&M) survey (which you can access here)

We all know that women tend to get paid less for equivalent positions that generally consist of similar responsibilities. This trend remains true in the MM&M survey. Men had an average salary of $135,043 while women had an average salary of $108,106. Of course, there are many factors to consider here: types of positions, types of industries, company size, etc.

For instance, the average salary is highest in the world of biotechnology ($143,090) and lowest in the hospital products/equipment sector ($97,899). Average salaries in pharma are on the high side ($125,716), but they're down 7% this year compared to 2008 while biotech salaries are up 6.7% compared to 2008.

The survey includes data from 500 people and I don't know how many of them are industry physicians. I personally think it would be interesting to see this salary survey provide a breakdown based one's education/degree. I'm sure those with an MBA are on the higher end of average and those with an MD, DO, PharmD, or PhD are towards the highest end of the spectrum. Speaking of the highest end, the highest reported annual salary was $650,000 while the lowest was $20,000. I believe this was all self-reported data, so take all this information with a grain of salt.

Pharma and the Dark Side?

I don't work in pharma, but I know many people who do. Some academic clinicians like to joke and say that they've moved over to the "dark side." Why do they say this? Because they've usually moved from a relatively low salary to a much higher salary.

I personally don't like the implications associated with a generalization like the "dark side." When I think about the "Dark Side" in the movie Star Wars, I think about how Anakin Skywalker was tempted to move over to the Dark Side. What tempted him? Greed? No. Power? Yes. Filled with anger and hatred, Anakin wanted power and control. To me, that's the Dark Side. So, if you're an angry physician full of hate and you want to gain power and control by going to pharma, then you've gone to the Dark Side.

Like many corporations, there are good and bad things about working in the pharma industry. Is the pharmaceutical business world so corrupt that we can't trust that some people are operating with sound moral principles? We often forget that we'd have no life-saving drugs and cancer therapeutics if pharma companies didn't exist. This doesn't justify greed, but it does show that there is a need for drug companies to perform research and development. We need to find a way to reduce drug development costs in order to reduce overall drug prices.

Industry support for CME

Earlier this year, the American Medical Association’s Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA) proposed that industry support for CME should be eliminated.

However, in a meeting earlier this month, the CEJA council member John McMahon, MD, said that the council made clear in its progress update at the Interim Meeting that it does not support eliminating commercial support. Read the whole story here:

http://meetingsnet.com/medicalmeetings/news/ceja_commercial_support_1108/

Advances in Capsule Endoscopy

Swallow a pill and let it take pictures of your gut. Sounds great, doesn't it? Well, the PillCam has been a leader in this medical device industry. However, it's not the only company making endoscopic capsules. RF System has the Sayaka and Olympus has the EndoCapsule. I think it would be so much fun to engineer these tiny devices that can take pictures inside your body. The next generation of these tiny probes may even take biopsies!

Going Back to School

I seem to be meeting more clinicians who are going back to school to learn about business. The problem is that medical school really doesn't prepare you for the 'real world' often encountered in the healthcare industry. Furthermore, many clinicians who are interested in pursuing non-clinical careers are looking into part-time and online business school opportunities.

I love being a student. I'm a lifelong learner and I like to read and learn about new things. Maybe I'll enroll for some classes this fall if I can justify spending all that money for the coursework. Wouldn't it be great if you could take classes for FREE? Well, in some ways you can. There are many lectures that get posted online. Look on YouTube or do a Google search and you may find something very interesting.

For example, MIT offers FREE courses here:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm