Second-quarter biotech job picture

During the second quarter of 2015, Shanghai-based WuXi PharmaTech began construction of a biologics manufacturing facility in Wuxi City that will be the largest in China when it opens in January 2017. The plant will be used for “near-term clinical and long-term commercial” production of biologics, according to the company. In addition, WuXi announced plans to build a cell therapy manufacturing facility in Philadelphia to produce chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR T) cells and other cancer immunotherapies. The plant is scheduled to come on line in mid-2016.

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA, USA) has negotiated a “right of first offer” on Genzyme's headquarters in Kendall Square, after Genzyme announced it would vacate the office tower when its lease expires in 2018. Alnylam's move marks the company's anticipated expansion and transition from research company to commercial business in the coming years. It currently has about 300 employees but expects to add 50 to 75 more by the end of the year.

Bristol-Myers Squibb will expand a facility in San Francisco next year and open a new research site in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2018. Also by 2018, it will close research sites in Wallingford, Connecticut, and Waltham, Massachusetts, relocate 200 employees to Cambridge and move 500 employees to a new location in Connecticut. The company also will relocate 40 scientists from Seattle to San Francisco.

Advertised biotech and pharma sector jobs in the job databases tracked by Nature Biotechnology during the second quarter of 2015 are shown in Tables 1 and 2. Other downsizings within the life sciences industry are shown in Table 3.

Table 1 Who's hiring? Advertised openings at the 25 largest biotech companies

Table 2 Advertised job openings at the ten largest pharma companies

Table 3 Selected biotech and pharma downsizings