Derek Lowe's commentary on drug discovery and the pharma industry. An editorially independent blog from the publishers of Science Translational Medicine. All content is Derek’s own, and he does not in any way speak for his employer.
A reader sends along a question that has been on the minds of many a grad student and post-doc over the years. He’s working away on his project, and trying to get work published. And naturally enough, he’d like to see it in the best possible journal, but what if the best possible journals turn… Read More
Chemjobber picks up here on an interesting letter to C&E News. What do you do, on a job interview, when your interviewer says something that’s obviously wrong? In my case, however, there was not an explicit question being asked. Rather, while discussing some topic, the interviewer would say something that was clearly and obviously (and… Read More
I find it very refreshing to be talking again, once in a while, about finding jobs in drug discovery. Via my Twitter feed, I note this fine article from Linda Wang in C&E News about job interviews. It’s a very picky world out there in the job market (still not so many jobs, still a… Read More
Time to break out the pseudonyms for the comments section. I’ve had a couple of people asking (on both sides of the process) what the starting salaries for medicinal chemists are running in the Boston/Cambridge area. It’s been a while since this was much of a topic, sad to say, but there is some hiring… Read More
I occasionally talk about the ecosystem of the drug industry being harmed by all the disruptions of recent years, and this post by Bruce Booth is exactly the sort of thing that fits that category. He’s talking about how much time it takes to get experience in this field, and what’s been happening to the… Read More
Some of you may enjoy See Arr Oh’s “Open Letter to Biotech Recruiters“. Or then again, you may find that you don’t enjoy it one tiny bit. Either way, it’s worth a read, and some thought. Read More
My column this month in Chemistry World is on high-pressure chemical interviews. Is my impression correct, that the good ol’ “let’s go to the board and draw out reaction mechnisms” sort of interview is slowly leaving the world?… Read More
I gave my talk at the Drew University Medicinal Chemistry course, and it got me to thinking about when I was there (1990 or 1991), and my early days in medicinal chemistry in general. There are a lot of things that have to be learned when coming out of a synthetic organic chemistry background, and… Read More
Venture capitalist Bruce Booth has moved his blog over to the Forbes network, and in his latest post he has some solid advice for people who are preparing to pitch him (and people like him) some ideas for a new company. It’s very sensible stuff, including the need to bring as much solid data as… Read More
Not many chemists come into the drug industry knowing very much about biology. I certainly didn’t, not on the level that was needed. It’s not surprising, but it’s also not as much of a handicap as you’d think, at least not at first. That’s because the first job of a new hire in the med-chem… Read More
