The current biotechnology industry is highly researchdependent. A typical integrated biopharmaceutical company will have several researchers or scientists within the organisation, and many small- to mid-sized product sponsor companies are populated predominantly by technical professionals. As a result, a company’s performance may hinge critically upon the effectiveness of their personnel’s research activities and scientific accomplishments. Accordingly, the failure to recruit, mentor, motivate, retain and provide incentives for these talented professionals will affect the profitability of the company – and, in some cases, its survival. With high employee turnover, years of research and millions of dollars of investment could be useless. Therefore, a sustainable environment, with low turnover and successful recruitment, is a key element of success. Employers in the biotech industry should embrace the concept of investment in people and be committed to retaining team members once they have been recruited. This may sound like a very basic tenet (like telling management not to miss a payroll), but professional recruiters agree that once their job is done, the real work then begins. Not getting the right talent in the right place at the right time (and keeping them on board) will cost companies dearly, and this cost cannot be quantified.

THE DEARTH OF TALENT

Within the past two decades, the biotech industry has finally achieved substantial progress and generated billions of dollars, capturing its long-promised share of the traditional healthcare market. However, it is now heading towards crisis. CNNMoney has reported that US academic institutions do not provide the industry with enough PhD holder and candidates who are educated in the biological science fields relevant to the industry (including molecular biology, immunology and biochemical engineering, to name a few). Biotech companies are struggling to recruit both graduates and experienced candidates from an under-sized pool. As a result, companies have been recruiting employees from other companies in order to fill the gap. With higher promised salaries, signing bonuses and ever more enticing employment packages, the driving force for employee turnover in the biotech industry is climbing. These conditions have created what amounts to a war of talent, particularly in the US.

A very straightforward solution to this drought of talent is to look for potential talent overseas. There is a plentiful supply of new professionals being trained abroad, with qualified education and suitable experience (especially in Asia). However, current immigration policy in the US severely restricts such recruitment as a solution to the talent war. Temporary workers, who are employed on a project-specific basis, cannot constitute a long-term solution to the talent shortage due to lack of continuity with the team and corporate goals.