Devices, Data, and Drugs: What Do Careers in Biotech Look Like?

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Drugs, devices, and data comprise the backbone of a biotech industry that’s anticipated to surpass $700 billion in revenues in the United States by 2025. The space is teeming with innovation, and the well-funded vertical attracts top-level talent by companies that need to compete or fold. Tremendous financial rewards prompt a steady stream of risk-taking by hopeful angel investors, who pony up tens of millions of dollars for two or three years of R&D funding. Here we’ll dive into several in-demand careers as dictated by recent industry trends, and the skills that companies want from their prospects.

Where is Biotech big business?

Pharma and life sciences startups are historically operated by venture capital, which is why New York City and Boston are the traditional hubs. Last year alone, 79 pharma startups in NYC won a combined $703 million in funding according to industry reports. The West Coast tech scene is no stranger to biotech with Oracle, Intel, and Microsoft providing enterprise services to the industry. Google parent Alphabet is actively acquiring young healthcare devices companies and launching its own clinical research presence in Silicon Valley. Chicago tech startups hope to parlay a geographical advantage in that the city is home to major corporate healthcare providers, insurance companies, and clinical laboratories.

Regulatory affairs careers are critical for pharmaceuticals, medical devices

A predominant storyline in pharmaceuticals revolves around new FDA leadership which experts call a breath of fresh air for the industry. The agency has pledged to make drug discovery a more streamlined process, hoping to reduce the time and costs associated with putting new drugs to market. In 2017, the agency approved 46 new compounds, the most in a decade, and twice as many as in 2016. Market experts predict that 2018 will outpace last year, potentially setting the FDA record for most substance approvals in a calendar year.

Naturally, navigating the FDA approvals process is one of the primary demands for any pharmaceutical company. This regulatory affairs career path prevails in every sector of biotech. In pharma, regulatory professionals are responsible for guiding product development in adherence with laws and regulations that govern the various points of the product lifecycle. A typical career arc moves from specialist to manager, and then director level. At some companies, roles of this variety fall under the auspices of a production manager.

Heading up the science component of biotech research is the chief medical officer (CMO). This role acts as the medical voice during the R&D process.

Experienced engineers wanted for medtech R&D

Just as in pharma, federal lawmakers impacted the medical device development outlook. Congress postponed the medical device tax an additional two years, which gives investors more incentive to fund R&D. Medtech professionals cite regulatory concerns as its greatest challenge; attitudes in the industry reflected the uncertainty on the American healthcare system in the face of ongoing attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Consensus seems to be medtech companies need to shift away from a “technology first” emphasis and make sure the business model appears solid in order attract M&A attention. This makes staffing experienced mechanical engineers and systems engineers and developers requisite for companies hoping to compete.

In medtech R&D, the core team members are often called medical device engineers. This role taps from various flavors of the engineering profession—mechanical engineers, manufacturing engineers, lean six sigma process managers, quality assurance professionals, polymers and chemical engineers—really it’s a catch-all role that runs the gamut across the profession. The nature of the work calls for engineers proficient in SolidWorks, CAD, and injection molding software depending on the products the company creates.

High demand for big data and deep learning programmers

Data is the cause and solution for all pain points in healthcare. Naturally companies take a vested interest in harnessing the power of data collection and analytics in administering patient care. Software development drives heavy investment in digital health space, whether that’s a component of pharmaceuticals, devices, or applications for organizing and securing patient data.

On the programming side, AI and machine learning is the de facto game changer for medical devices and software. This is driving high demand for Python developers with electrical engineering backgrounds. We’re seeing the open source machine learning software TensorFlow enter the conversion. This former Google proprietary application continues its widespread adoption in medtech R&D. TensorFlow is a CUDA application is built for graphics processing (GPU) hardware. Companies are looking for project managers and deep learning engineers versed in GPU programming. Embedded medical devices have firmware usually written in C/C++ frameworks, and knowing MatLab and R makes candidates very marketable.