December 2, 2016
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
There is a tendency when thinking about jobs in biopharma to focus on research and development, or at the executive end of things. But in fact, while manufacturing jobs in the U.S. in general have decreased, biopharma manufacturing jobs have increased.
There are a lot of biopharma manufacturing jobs, and they’re often very good jobs. Let’s take a look.
Crunching Some Numbers
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, pharmaceuticals accounted for approximately a third of all manufacturing research and development in 2014, which makes up about $74.9 billion in spending.
What does that mean? It means jobs. And lots of them.
Darren Dasburg, Boulder Manufacturing Center Site Director for AstraZeneca , told BioSpace, “One study I’ve seen shows the industry of manufacturing professionals growing from 15,000 people today to 30,000 by 2023 due largely to the pipeline of new biologics products on the horizon. That is reinforced by the more than $19 billion in biotech plants currently under construction around the world.”
Types of Jobs
One of the biggest differences between biopharma R&D jobs and manufacturing jobs is the degree level required. Manufacturing often employs individuals with bachelor degrees, and sometimes individuals with high school diplomas and associate degrees. R&D tends to focus on doctorates and medical degrees.
Philip Mericantante, Life Science Executive Recruiter for Adante Staffing, told BioSpace, “In general, there are a lot of manufacturing jobs at different levels, on your smaller scale as well as your commercial manufacturing conditions.”
Mericantante breaks down biopharma manufacturing, noting that there are really two broad levels of pharma manufacturing. “You have, during manufacturing, in clinical manufacturing, a development piece. This is engineering, where you’re optimizing the process. Once you get to a certain level, off the research level and into development, this is where you go from a petri dish to a small biogenerator. Maybe one liter to 15 liters, not big massive 55-gallon drums.”
At the smaller scale, this is often engineering, where, he said, people with bachelors, masters and doctorate degrees are optimizing the manufacturing process. “You also have technicians and manufacturing associates that do the more routine type of work. They have a batch and it’s all about the production of the batch — a large-scale batch or a small-scale batch,” Mericantante said. At that level, it’s common to see someone with a bachelor degree, or potentially even a high school graduate or an associate degree.
The larger scale is commercial manufacturing, where big quantities of drugs are manufactured for a worldwide market.
“Entry level positions include manufacturing operators and quality control analysts. Higher level positions requiring experience include senior quality control and quality assurance analysts, specialists, investigators, scientists, principal scientists, program managers, manufacturing specialists, process and facility engineers,” Dasburg said.
The typical degree level for these biopharma manufacturing jobs is a bachelor’s degree, and common degrees are biology, biochemistry, chemistry, engineering, life sciences, and technical sciences.
Manufacturing Trends
One of the changes that’s going on in the pharmaceutical industry in general is the addition of biologics manufacturing. One definition of biologics is: genetically-engineered proteins that are derived from human genes.
Dasburg told BioSpace, “In the next five to 10 years, we believe 50 percent of our pipeline will be biologics. We are investing significantly in our capacity to deliver on the promise of our pipeline. That includes our purchase of the Boulder (Colorado) facility and the subsequent purchase of warehousing space in Longmont; expansion of capabilities in Frederick, Md., and we are building a brand-new site in Sweden.”
Geography
In the U.S., although there are biopharma research-and-development operations and headquarters throughout the country, in reality, the biggest concentrations are in Boston and the San Francisco Bay Area.
However, manufacturing is less concentrated. Mericantante, who is located in the Boston area, said, “You don’t see a lot of manufacturing going on in Cambridge. That’s reserved for research and smaller scale development and engineering, as well as headquarters. A lot of the bigger companies, over the last 10 years, have moved their manufacturing out of Cambridge.”
Dasburg noted, “Biologics manufacturing is linked to facility capabilities and capacity. Our manufacturing facilities aren’t tied to specific geographic regions. Oftentimes a [geographic] selection for a facility will be based on availability of talent, location infrastructure, business incentives from the local community, quality of life for staff, local universities and schools, etc.”
What this means for individuals interested in biopharma manufacturing jobs is more geographic options for work. As Dasburg noted, AstraZeneca has manufacturing facilities in Colorado, Maryland, Sweden and other locations. A quick look through online job postings shows jobs in Yonkers, N.Y.; Medford, Mass.; Novato and Los Angeles, California; Wilmington, Ohio; Smithfield, Rhode Island; Phoenix, Arizona and other locations.
Good Jobs
Although the definition of a “good job” has enormous variability, Mericantante, who focuses on recruiting life science executives, but also has a specialized niche in biopharma development and manufacturing jobs, pointed out that these jobs can pay very well.
“Research and development really is geared toward that master’s and PhD level, whereas manufacturing is more high school, associates, bachelors. If you have a biotechnology certificate, a high school degree or a bachelor’s degree and you’re on the manufacturing side, you can do really well. You can move up to a management, supervisor or manager level and make into the $100,000s. They do well,” Mericantante said.
By other standards as well, these are really good jobs as well as satisfying and interesting careers.
Dasburg told BioSpace, “Manufacturing in the U.S. at one time represented more than 22 percent of our GDP. Today it has dipped to less than 18 percent. We are bucking that trend by growing our manufacturing capability. Furthermore, biotech roles in manufacturing offer some of the highest quality environments for an individual’s scientific and leadership growth. This is a thriving industry and you can help underscore that we will soon have a labor shortage unless we can build excitement in younger generations around STEM skills and the opportunities that biologics—specifically biologics manufacturing—can offer.”
