Career Opportunities in Biotechnology and Drug Development

Every graduate student or postdoctoral fellow considering the transition to industry should read Career Opportunities in Biotechnology and Drug Development by Toby Freedman. The book begins with an overview of the biotechnology industry. Specifically, the author provides a list of the pros and cons of working in industry vs. academia. The book also describes the personality traits that allow one to excel in the industry environment. Next, Freedman offers pointers on how to land a job in industry. For example, he gives suggestions on how to write a resume and how to conduct oneself on an interview. He even provides a sample resume. The second part of the book is dedicated to describing different careers within biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. Some of those fields, such as discovery research and preclinical research, are familiar to many graduate students and postdocs. However, Freedman describes careers that are less well known to those in an academic environment. Those careers include project management, regulatory affairs, corporate development, law, and management consulting. A short description of each of those careers is provided. The author also lists examples of day-today tasks performed in each of those positions. The positive and negative aspects of each job, along with the personality traits that make one a good candidate for that job, are outlined. In addition to describing each career in detail, the author explains how different industry jobs are related to each other. Using diagrams, Freedman describes how drug development begins with discovery research, then movies to preclinical research, clinical trials, regulatory affairs, quality control, and, finally, to sales. Other useful illustrations describe the paths that one can take to get to a certain career and what opportunities that career can open up. I highly recommend this comprehensive description of industry careers.