September 11, 2015
By Angela Rose, BioSpace.com News
Idaho, Oregon, Montana and Washington are gearing up for the Fall BioForest Talent Connect as the Pacific Northwest continues to build its reputation as home to some of the best life science employers in the world. Opportunities in the area have exploded, with biotech and pharma employment increasing more than 7 percent last year according to JLL research.
One of these employers, Seattle Genetics, Inc. , has been engaged in a hiring spree for much of 2015. The company—which develops drugs to treat various forms of cancer including Hodgkin’s disease—has been recruiting life science professionals to support preclinical developments and clinical trial activities as well as continue to commercialize its flagship product, Adcetris.
Another Pacific Northwest company—Juno Therapeutics —announced earlier this year that the company will open a new facility in the area to support a planned clinical trial, add more clinical programs to their pipeline, and support the company’s first commercial products. They expect the new site to be operational sometime in 2016, and they’ve been ramping up hiring efforts as a result. Current opportunities at the clinical-stage company include program manager, quality control associate, strategic planning associate and business development director.
Job seekers who want to meet and network with representatives from Seattle Genetics, Lab Connect, Zymeworks and more can do so at The Westin Seattle on September 17 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Each organization will be conducting on-site in-depth private interviews with candidates as they recruit for multiple job openings.
Shirley Yang, senior HR business partner at Seattle Genetics told BioSpace , “We are actively hiring right now with over 60 openings across all departments.” Her organization will be using the Talent Connect event to continue their recruiting efforts. “We are staffing across all departments with a particular focus on Research, Process Sciences, Clinical, Biometrics and Regulatory,” she said.
Candidates who want to attend must pre-register for the event and submit their resumes for pre-screening and approval for the one-on-one 15-minute interviews.
The growing number of biotech and pharma positions available is welcome news for the Pacific Northwest economy as well as job seekers. The area lost 600 jobs last year after Amgen closed its Bothell and Seattle facilities. Albany Molecular Research, Inc. , a contract research and development services company, also shuttered its Bothell site a few years prior, eliminating more positions.
Chris Rivera, president of the Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association, told the Puget Sound Business Journal earlier this year that recruiting to the area could be challenging for employers due to there being fewer biotech companies in Seattle than in other business hubs. But that’s always good news for job seekers—less competition for available positions increases the chances of landing an offer.
