The first quarter of 2014 saw a rise in the number of biotechnology and pharmaceutical sector jobs advertised in the job databases tracked by Nature Biotechnology (Tables 1 and 2). Compared with the fourth quarter (Nat. Biotechnol. 32, 199, 2014), biotech listings rose slightly on Monster and remained steady on LinkedIn and Naturejobs. Notably, LinkedIn featured openings from the top 24 biotech companies and the top 10 pharmas, suggesting its emerging dominance in the life-sciences job-seeking sector.

Table 1 Who's hiring? Advertised job 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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Several companies announced expansions in the first quarter. Israeli company Compugen announced plans to relocate its US R&D subsidiary to larger facilities in South San Francisco, California, in mid-2014, in conjunction with an increase in its R&D budget from $10 million in 2013 to $16 million this year.

Merck said it will create four innovation hubs in or near Boston, San Francisco, London and Shanghai to identify external early-stage and late-stage R&D opportunities for in-licensing or acquisition. Bayer announced a €500 ($694.8) million investment to establish additional manufacturing capacities for its recombinant factor VIII (rFVIII) hemophilia products at its sites in Wuppertal and Leverkusen, Germany, which will create about 500 new jobs by 2020. And AbbVie said it would invest $320 million in a new facility to manufacture active drug substances for the company's oncology and immunology pipeline. The facility will create more than 250 jobs and is slated to open in Singapore by 2019.

Meanwhile, AstraZeneca has found a buyer for its Alderley Park cancer R&D center in northwest England. The 400-acre site will be taken over by Manchester Science Parks, which plans to maintain the center's status as a biomedical research campus. AstraZeneca's previously announced restructuring plans call for a move to a $500-million complex in Cambridge, UK, with the aim of turning the area into a global hub with collaborators such as the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine and Addenbrooke's Hospital.

Other notable third-quarter downsizings in the life-science industry are shown in Table 3.

Table 3 Selected biotech and pharma downsizings
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