In the second quarter of 2013, the number of advertised biotech and pharma sector jobs fell slightly in the three job databases tracked by Nature Biotechnology (Tables 1 and 2). Compared with the previous quarter (Nat. Biotechnol. 31, 465, 2013), listings for the top 25 biotech companies dipped on Monster, LinkedIn and Naturejobs. Pharma company listings were more mixed, staying almost identical on Monster while increasing by 59% on LinkedIn and decreasing by more than 90% on Naturejobs, respectively. Of special note this quarter was the first appearance in these databases of two Asian companies. Bangalore, India–based Biocon posted 10 open positions and WuXi PharmaTech of Shanghai, China, posted 25 open positions on LinkedIn's job board, making it the most utilized database among the top 25 biotechs, with all but 3 of the companies represented.

Table 1 Who's hiring? Advertised openings at the 25 largest biotech companies
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Table 2 Advertised job openings at the ten largest pharma companies
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In May, gene therapy developer GenVec (Gaithersburg, MD, USA) announced that its board had approved a plan to dissolve the company and liquidate its assets after reporting a 47% year-over-year drop in annual revenue for 2012. The company plans to distribute all remaining cash to shareholders after liabilities and other company obligations are paid.

In Europe, the sale of the former headquarters of Merck Serono in Geneva to the consortium behind the Campus Biotech initiative has been finalized. Campus Biotech, consisting of a biotech research center with two local universities as well as a business incubator, is the brainchild of Hansjorg Wyss, founder of Synthes, and Ernesto Bertarelli, former CEO of Serono. The sale of the site cushions the blow of Merck Serono's announcement in April that it would shut down the facility and relocate its R&D activities to Germany, the United States and China.

Finally, Roche has said it will dissolve its Roche Applied Science division and integrate its product portfolio into the company's other diagnostics business areas by year's end. The division's PCR technology and nucleic acid product lines will fall under Roche Molecular Diagnostics, while the portfolio of platforms and reagents will be moved to Roche Professional Diagnostics. The changes will result in a head count reduction of about 170. Other notable second-quarter downsizings within the life science industry are shown in Table 3.

Table 3 Selected biotech and pharma downsizings
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