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I'm not saying a pot of gold but at this point almost anything would be better I even applied to be a Chicago Police Officer.
Well, as I'm sure you're seeing we're all in tight positions in this crap of an economy. My co just announced lay offs. Thank goodness for us that a majority of them are in Europe, but all the temps in one platform at my institute are not having their contracts renewed. I have two friends that are/were HS school teachers. They're married and were lay offed at the same time. One of them is working as an admin now. People are complaining about law school, accounting, regional nursing problems, financial sector, sales, etc. Not too long ago you thought it was industry specific. Sadly, that's not the case.
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Also I'm at the point where I just hate science. I don't even read science papers anymore, I start reading them and there is a voice in the back of my head screaming wasted effort working for nothing. I hate the company I work for. I go the meetings where they talk about what they are doing and I have to pretend to be interested when in fact I am screaming in my mind I don't give a frak. I hope the company goes bankrupt. In fact I can't say I have respect or affection for any American companies anymore.
These issues don't really have anything to do with science. Although, your co clearly sucks.
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Right now I am just saving money in my savings account to have enough money to get out of science. I'll have $100k by the end of the year. I'd consider a job with the federal govt. but otherwise I'd never work in science for an American company again.
It's good that you have that money, but I would be careful. Hopefully, your grad program won't deplete it too much.
My co just announced lay offs. Thank goodness for us that a majority of them are in Europe, but all the temps in one platform at my institute are not having their contracts renewed. I have two friends that are/were HS school teachers. They're married and were lay offed at the same time. One of them is working as an admin now. People are complaining about law school, accounting, regional nursing problems, financial sector, sales, etc
Yeah, a lot of major companies have been making cuts in R & D, I'm not really sure what its about but its something I've definitely noticed as an "investor". Amgen, a company local to here, just announced some pretty major R&D layoffs.
Is there any reason why these companies would have reduced expectations of future R&D expenditures? I think you said something relevant along these lines just recently...
Anyhow, until there are some major reforms in the economy and government, its unlikely the situation is going to dramatically improve any time soon....if ever. Modern propaganda has become so effective that peoples anger about the US economy is actually being funneled into policy action that makes matters worse for them.
Yeah, a lot of major companies have been making cuts in R & D, I'm not really sure what its about but its something I've definitely noticed as an "investor". Amgen, a company local to here, just announced some pretty major R&D layoffs.
Is there any reason why these companies would have reduced expectations of future R&D expenditures? I think you said something relevant along these lines just recently...
I don't recall what I may have said and I really don't know the in's and out's of it, but based on my limited information the stratified problems in R&D obviously involve our economy, significant challenges with FDA regulation, expiring patents, and short cuts that were paying off 10 years ago, but the chickens are coming home to roost now (or however that saying goes). I'm sure we can throw in corporate greed, but I won't address that.
1. Expiring patents affect R&D. If a co doesn't have much in the pipeline it's trouble. So, mergers and buyouts take place to expand a portfolio. This results in redundancies and subsequent layoffs.
2. Short cuts. I've spent a bit of time with laid off senior scientists that hailed from pfizer. I don't know if this is insider information, but pfizer was using some kind of patent-rented spray dry formulation technique that recently expired. I guess it was on lease and the renewed asking price was not feasible for them. This is problematic because you can have dozens of drugs in the pipeline that won't work any other way. Or at least not until a better technology is developed.
The MO is to heavily rely on formulation (a branch in pharma that is concerned with development and delivery). From my pov it's a matter of compromising the development of a better molecule delivery wise, because it's a pain in the ass. It goes back to potency. An extremely potent molecule that can not reach a target site without significant formulation. Once you're 5-10 years into it, it's too late to turn back. I may be wrong here, but this is what these scientists were conveying to me.
With that said, more than 10 years ago now my co made the decision to develop early discovery, in part to avoid many of the problems that are surfacing now. We've had record profits since the recession began, but they're still going with layoffs. The buzz around the office is that they may be trying to get out of the euro market. I don't know if that's the case, but they're pulling out of Italy. They're pulling out of their home base (Switzerland), and they're pulling out of the UK. Sites in the US are expanding, tho. And of course the site in China is expanding.
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Anyhow, until there are some major reforms in the economy and government, its unlikely the situation is going to dramatically improve any time soon....if ever. Modern propaganda has become so effective that peoples anger about the US economy is actually being funneled into policy action that makes matters worse for them.
So true. It feels like we're frozen and god knows when a thaw will come.
Yeah, a lot of major companies have been making cuts in R & D, I'm not really sure what its about but its something I've definitely noticed as an "investor". Amgen, a company local to here, just announced some pretty major R&D layoffs.
Yep its called businesses being run by short sighted idiots who make the same mistakes over and over and never learn. Not enough R&D is exactly why pharma is in the mess that it is with empty pipelines and big revenue drugs coming off patent. They think that cutting back on R&D even further is going to help?
Yep its called businesses being run by short sighted idiots who make the same mistakes over and over and never learn.
Yes that would explain why many of these companies have been around for many decades....
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Originally Posted by MSchemist80
Not enough R&D is exactly why pharma is in the mess that it is with empty pipelines and big revenue drugs coming off patent. They think that cutting back on R&D even further is going to help?
If they were looking off a cliff because they failed to properly fund R&D, how exactly is cutting R&D further a response that makes sense at all?
Amgen traditionally has one of the highest R&D budgets, yet they too are starting to cut their R&D budgets.
That's interesting, its basically just an article of the pros and cons of vertical integration and I guess some major companies are starting to see their vertical integration in this case to be a greater con than good.
Many of these companies are starting to look like good investments though...
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