Biotech's Biggest Spenders for 2011

Interesting article over at Fierce Biotech on list Biotech's Biggest Spenders in 2011.
You can view the article here.

And the article makes an interesting observation comparing the size of R&D budgets for Biotech compared to Big Pharma:

"If you add up the R&D budgets for the top 15 public biotechs in the world, you'll find a tab that runs right about $10 billion. That's not small change, by any means, but to put it in some perspective, it is interesting to note that Roche, which has the largest research budget for any biopharma on the planet, spent a bit more than that last year advancing new drugs and technology."

The Holiday Season is a great time to look for a job

I was speaking with a candidate on this past Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Even though he had just recently been laid off, he told me that he figured that with the holidays coming up, that he was just going to lay low and then start aggressively start looking for a position on Jan. 2.

I told him he was making a mistake.

While there is a myth that all hiring screeches to a halt during the Holiday Season, the holidays are in fact a great time to look for a job.
In fact, in my 20 years as a Recruiter, I have consistently had my strongest billing months in Nov. and Dec.

There are a couple of reasons for this.
1- Most people stop looking for a job during the Holiday Season. They have bought into the myth that nothing will happen so they stop looking. That lowers the number of people actively looking and therefore lessens the competition.
2- There are situations, especially at companies that operate on a calendar-year basis, where a Hiring Manager is told that if he/she does not fill his/her position by the end of the year, they may lose the position.

Don't misunderstand - there are companies that essentially 'shut-down' around the Holidays.
But there are companies that are still hiring. And there still exist enough opportunities out there that anybody who stops their job search during the Holiday Season is making a big mistake.

Pharma Firms Increase Outsourcing Spending

Interesting article over at World Trade 100...The article discusses the growing outsourcing trend in Pharmaceuticals.
The article states that:
"Outsourcing deal signings in the pharmaceutical vertical grew at a faster pace than in other verticals in 2010, surging to a ten-year high that represented 81 percent growth over 2009 as compared to the overall industry average of 13 percent..."

It goes on to mention that:
"The pharma industry is a nascent adopter of outsourcing as compared to some other industries, but multiple factors have emerged that are driving adoption, and we saw strong evidence of these dynamics coming into play last year when the market peaked," says Amneet Singh, VP, global sourcing. "The spike we saw in 2010 was largely the result of pent-up demand from the recessionary economy; however, the business drivers for outsourcing adoption remain and continue to evolve. Cost pressures, a changing pharma ecosystem, emerging markets and other market forces are continuing to drive the market. Moving forward, we expect to see an increase in sourcing of drug development and research, supply chain, data management, and analytics functions."

The amount of outsourcing that we are seeing is large...and it looks like the trend will only continue.