Fourth-quarter biotech job picture

CAREER FEATURE

Nature Biotechnology

volume 40page 279 (2022)Cite this article

A quarterly snapshot of job expansions, reductions and availability in the biotech and pharma sectors.

Construction and expansion plans by biotech and pharma companies continued on into the fourth quarter of 2021, spurred on by increased manufacturing demand. Roche gene therapy subsidiary Spark Therapeutics announced plans to invest at least $575 million in a state-of-the-art gene therapy innovation center at Drexel University’s campus in Philadelphia. The 500,000-square-foot facility will house hundreds of gene therapy developers and serve as a Roche global center of excellence for gene therapy manufacturing. Construction is scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Hilleman Laboratories, a joint venture of Merck & Co. and Wellcome Trust, announced it will open a vaccine and biologics development and manufacturing hub in Singapore. Comprising a current good manufacturing practices facility and a state-of-the art R&D facility which began operations in April 2021, Hilleman Labs will invest up to $58 million in operations, infrastructure and capacity building over the next five years.

Novo Nordisk said it will invest $2.5 billion in three new facilities and the expansion of a fourth to increase its manufacturing capacity in Kalundborg, Denmark. Expected to be completed in 2027, the expansion will add 400 full-time employees.

Meanwhile, GlaxoSmithKline announced a massive downsizing of its office space in Philadelphia and Research Triangle Park, North Carolina in a nod to the COVID-19 pandemic-induced ‘new normal’. The company said they expect at most 50% of their 660 employees in Philadelphia and 1,300 employees at Research Triangle Park to come to the office on a daily basis. In Philadelphia, GSK is relocating from its Navy Yard offices to the FMC Tower in University City, a reduction of 75% in square footage. The company is also moving its offices from Research Triangle Park to downtown Durham by June, downsizing its space by almost 90%.

Advertised biotechnology and pharmaceutical sector jobs in the job databases tracked by Nature Biotechnology grew slightly in the fourth quarter of 2021 (Tables 1 and 2) compared with the previous quarter (Nat. Biotechnol. 39, 1475, 2021).

Table 1 Who’s hiring? Advertised openings at the 25 largest biotech companies
Table 2 Advertised job openings at the ten largest pharma companies

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  1. Senior Editor, Nature Biotechnology

    Michael Francisco

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Francisco, M. Fourth-quarter biotech job picture.
Nat Biotechnol 40, 279 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-022-01214-4

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