Study: Biotech Workers 'Thrive' On Instability

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December 16, 1999

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HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES

Despite the volatile nature of the biotechnology industry, in which years spent developing new drugs can result in massive layoffs or skyrocketing stock prices overnight, a new study by the Radcliffe Public Policy Center (RPPC) has found that biotech workers are actually thriving in this highly unstable environment. Marked by job insecurity, dependence on changing technology, and uncertain financing, the biotechnology industry is viewed by researchers as one of the best examples of the workplace of the future.

"The challenges biotech workers are mastering today will be the ones most workers will struggle with in the next millennium," said Paula Rayman, director of RPPC and principal investigator in the new study. "In the workplace of the future, employees will have to re-invent the concept of a safety net. In biotech, we found workers were changing their attitudes and focusing less on job security than career durability. They hopscotch from one biotech company to another, carrying their skills like turtles on their back."

The two-year study, titled Professional Pathways: Examining Work, Family and Community in the Biotechnology Industry, focused on three Massachusetts companies: Genzyme Tissue Repair in Cambridge, Aquila Biopharmaceuticals in Framingham, and Avant Immunotherapies in Needham. Funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the study used surveys, focus groups, and individual interviews to delve into the lives of biotech scientists and technicians.

Radcliffe researchers found that the lure of being on the cutting edge of a medical breakthrough attracts skilled scientists and technicians willing to balance their desire to "make a difference" with their need for economic security. Because biotech is a growing industry that tends to cluster in a few geographic areas and encourages contacts within the industry, workers have more confidence in their ability to move quickly from one job to another. The RPPC study revealed that workers expect, accept, and even welcome change as a necessary part of their job.

Typical of the smaller knowledge-based industries of the future, more than half of the 1,283 biotechnology firms operating in 1998 employed fewer than 50 workers, and 90 percent employed fewer than 500.

One of the most research-intensive industries in the world, the U.S. biotech industry spent nearly $10 billion in 1998 alone. Biotech also has the longest product development cycle of any high-tech industry. It takes seven to 10 years to go from a scientific idea to a marketable product. Yet, when all is said and done, the drug may not work, the FDA may not grant approval, or the market may be saturated.

"Professionals in biotech companies go to work every day knowing that their jobs are vulnerable because success in the industry – bringing a drug successfully and profitably to market – is a risky proposition," Rayman said. "The resourcefulness and resilience in the face of job uncertainty that biotech professionals have adopted offer us a model for dealing with increasing insecurity in the workplace of the 21st century."

For more information or to get a copy of the new study Professional Pathways: Examining Work, Family and Community in the Biotechnology Industry, call (617) 496-3048.