Generally speaking, many life science companies in the United States complain that there is a lack of skilled people to draw on. That could partially be due to, as numerous studies have shown, a lack of STEM graduates from the U.S.
Generally speaking, many life science companies in the United States complain that there is a lack of skilled people to draw on. That could partially be due to, as numerous studies have shown, a lack of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) graduates from the U.S.
In a 2018 op-ed in The Hill, Dhaval Jadav, chief executive officer of Alliant Group, a national tax consultancy, noted that the U.S. government wants businesses to stop outsourcing and creates incentives to hire American workers.
Recently, Steve Matas, vice president of staffing for clinical research organization (CRO) Advanced Clinical, told BioSpace that the company struggled to fill jobs and there were many more spaces available than people to fill them.
“I think there’s not enough STEM kids coming out of schools in the U.S.,” Matas said. “We’re seeing a lot of foreign-born in the industry and that’s faster than U.S.-born, so we’re bringing in a lot of people with visas.”
He also pointed out that there’s a huge amount of money currently flowing into certain kinds of life science companies these days, referring to Google and their life science company Verily.
“In a weird way, from a data perspective, there’s a lot of money and investment that’s sucking up a lot of talent,” Matas said.
A Ranstad North America study published in 2018 indicated that as of 2016, in the U.S., there were approximately 3 million more STEM jobs than workers to fill them.
Plans to Encourage STEM Education
And it’s not only a U.S. problem. A recent article in PharmaField described the problem and how the UK’s Science Industry Partnership (SIP) is working to alleviate the problem by creating an alliance of employers to focus on taking control of the skills needed for innovation, growth and increased productivity in the life sciences sector.
Much of the skills gap described talks about problems finding skilled and trained people in data science, IT, and mathematics, which are indeed becoming a huge part of life sciences and drug discovery and development. SIP is focused on that as well, but recently launched a Life Sciences 2030 Skills Strategy that aims at R&D, medicines manufacturing and their related supply and service chains, and how AI and emerging technologies will play a role.
Alex Felthouse, who is chairing the SIP Futures Group, notes that the group has endorsed four key research areas: 1) assessment and identification of the skills needed for R&D, 2) analysis of the skills needed for drug manufacturing, including established and complex drugs, 3) a detailed gap analysis of how to deliver vocational skills, including apprenticeships, and 4) a study of the post-Brexit UK workforce skills capacity and needs.
In Jadav’s op-ed, he too calls for promoting public and private sector partnerships, citing a partnership between the University of Maryland and Northrop Grumman. He also calls for educating students on alternatives to four-year degrees and what a broad range of STEM careers there can be, and promote STEM education at an earlier age.
He wrote, “While there is no magic bullet to solve the skills gap, these three reforms could go a long way to improving STEM education and in providing the skills needed to prosper in our emerging tech-based economy.”
Corporate and State Initiatives
South San Francisco-based Genentech has an active program to encourage STEM education in the local schools. One of the prime examples is Futurelab, which is several Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) educational programs, mentorships and a science competition for South San Francisco schools.
These include Gene Academy for third through fifth grade, the Helix Cup for eighth graders in the entire South San Francisco Unified School District, and Science Garage for grades nine through twelve.
Gene Academy is basically a mentoring program on-site at Genentech, with 170 third-through-fifth-graders matched with two employee mentors. The program’s goal is to have the children with the same employee mentors for the same school year, but increasingly the kids have the same mentor or pair of mentors for all three years.
The middle school level program is the Helix Cup, which is a science competition. Each year more than 600 kids participate on problem-solving challenges, teamwork, resilience and communication. Most of the challenges take place at the schools, but the finale, about nine teams with a total of about 30 kids, is at Genentech headquarters.
And at the high school level, the Science Garage focuses on competence. It’s essentially a three-year long optional science lab course created in conjunction with the San Francisco schools and with Genentech that was approved by the state of California. Genentech built a 6,900-square-feet state-of-the-art biotech teaching facility that opened in 2017 on the campus of South San Francisco High School.
Various states also have programs to encourage public-private STEM partnerships, for example Iowa. The state’s STEM Council has a network of six regional STEM hubs that provide STEM opportunities to students and teachers across the state. The state of Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center have a number of programs, including grants to high school and middle schools, paid internships, and grants to colleges for STEM activities.
All of these initiatives and many more, are necessary to ensure that biopharmaceutical and medical device sectors can continue to hire top talent that will create the cutting-edge medicines of tomorrow.
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