Just a few years ago, Patrick Kearney found himself in a place that is painfully familiar to many chemists. When his position as a senior director of medicinal chemistry at a San Francisco Bay Area biotechnology company was eliminated in 2011, he entered a challenging job market feeling as though his career had stalled. Eager to find another career path, Kearney made a decision to pursue a longtime dream of starting his own contract research organization (CRO). He was acting on a promising business idea that had come to him during one of his job interviews.
As he sought resources to help him take that leap of faith, Kearney learned about the American Chemical Society’s Entrepreneurial Initiative, a program to support ACS members who would like to pursue starting and operating their own businesses. At the time, it was a new two-year pilot program, and he wasted no time in applying to be a part of it.
Kearney’s application was successful, and he is now taking advantage of a renewed program. The ACS Board of Directors has approved a plan to “revamp and optimize” the Entrepreneurial Initiative for another two-year run, says David E. Harwell, assistant director of ACS industry member programs and coordinator for the initiative. The application period for the next group of participants, he adds, will open on April 2.
The program recognizes the tremendous hurdles involved in starting a business, Harwell adds. As would be expected, most of the companies involved in the program “have a long row to hoe and are struggling, but a few seem to be rocketing right through.”
Kearney is working toward being one of the success stories coming out of the ACS program. He founded HD Sciences, a Kansas City, Mo., medicinal chemistry CRO that aims to accelerate the identification and optimization of lead compounds for drug discovery. Next month, he is set to begin proof-of-concept research in the lab of his collaborator, Paul R. Hanson, a chemistry professor at the University of Kansas, Lawrence.Fascinating to see how things go for ideas like this -- my sincere best wishes to Dr. Kearney. To find out more about the ACS Entrepreneurial Initiative, click here.
The Iron Chemist: "Salaries Terrible, Employment Mediocre"The entry with the most votes (counting Twitter, e-mail and comments on this post) will be declared the winner. If you think that another nominee is better, you can write in votes (for previous entries only).
Anonymous: "Sorry The Employment's Missing"
Anonymous: "Sure To End Miserably"
Pig Farmer: "Sack Those Employees, Mate"
Pig Farmer: "Shortage, The Eternal Mantra"
Free Radical: "Surplus Trained: Employers' Market!"
Scott Frazee: "Solely Technology Employment Meaningful"
Will I. Retireachemist: "Statistics Twisted, Employees Mourn"
This week’s announcement that Albany Molecular Research Inc. will acquire Cedarburg Hauser Pharmaceuticals—a $41 million deal—has us on the verge of declaring a trend. You will recall that last October, AAIPharma purchased another Midwest active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) producer, Cambridge Major Laboratories. All we need is one more to feel that the black ice of overcapacity in pharmaceutical fine chemicals is finally starting to melt.
[Note: The DSM/Patheon deal does not count as it has not, as of yet, led to any consolidation in API manufacturing stewardship.]
Industry watchers have long bemoaned the need—some would call it the obvious-if-not drastic need—for consolidation in the contract pharma chemicals sector. The problem of too few jobs for too many producers is long-standing to the point of seeming sustainable. But action may be triggered now by the nature of those jobs. Customers, transitioning from the block-buster era into the age of targeted therapies, want much smaller volumes of chemicals than they did only a couple of years ago. And the molecules they want have become increasingly more complex. The stronger contractors, such as AMRI, are on the lookout for ready-to-go advanced API synthesis capacity. Companies like Cambridge Major and Cedarburg are perfect targets, especially for diversified service firms such as AAI and AMRI that want to build out their API offerings.I did not expect AMRI to be an acquirer, as opposed to the acquired. But what do I know? It's good news for them, I suppose, although I wonder how employees of Cedarburg feel.
Camargo Pharmaceutical Services, a leading drug development organization specializing in the 505(b)(2) approval pathway, is adding expertise to its projects and helping postdoctoral researchers gain real-world experience through a unique internship program."Interns", "research associates". There's nothing quite like giving postdocs titles that typically mean "summer student" or "non-Ph.D.-holder."
In January 2014, four postdoctoral researchers joined the Camargo team at its growing Durham, N.C., location. Partnering with academic organizations, including Duke University, the internship creates hands-on opportunities across the drug development process. As research associates, the interns assist research scientists during various stages of their work, including feasibility assessments and the design and conduct of nonclinical programs and Phase I-IV clinical trials, as well as FDA regulatory preparation and filings of INDs and NDAs.
“This experience provides an opportunity for postdoctoral interns to gain experience in the regulated environment of drug development, offers a fresh perspective to our research scientists by contributing to the therapeutic breadth and ultimately helps Camargo expand our efforts,” said Gary Barnette, vice president of drug development for Camargo.
The internship can also act as a gateway to a career. In the last 20 years, there has been an increase in Ph.D. graduates countered by a decrease in academic appointments. More and more graduates with a Ph.D. are looking for positions beyond academia and that includes positions in pharmaceutical research.
“Historically, Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers were training for tenured faculty positions, but now only 20 percent of graduates with a Ph.D. will go on to tenured academic appointments,” said Molly Starback, director of Duke's postdoctoral services office. “Today, these postdoctoral researchers are applying for the same positions as established professionals. It has become a very competitive field, but internship programs like Camargo’s are helping some of them get their foot in the door.”
POSITION SUMMARY:
Implement and maintain chemistry, radiochemistry, radioactive effluents, and chemical control programs at Cooper Station to assure maximum performance, meet regulatory obligations/commitments, and comply with technical specifications and ODAM related to plant chemistry and radioactive effluents. The major aspects include ensuring instrumentation and process monitors are operated and maintained according to NRC, NPDES, Fuel Warranty requirements, INPO guidelines and development of the Chemistry staff. Review and coordinate Chemistry Department work schedule via the T-Process Work Week Scheduling. Serve as the champion of high standards of Human Performance Tool Usage within the Chemistry Department. Serve as program coordinator for BWRVIP, EPRI, INPO, Fuel Warranty, and station mandated chemistry programs. Coordinate and implement corrective actions and enhancements to Chemistry Department programs.
Description of ideal candidate
Qualifications: B.S. degree in Chemistry or related field of study, plus three years experience as described below.
Detailed knowledge of chemistry and radiochemistry process and controls, chemical and radiological process monitors, and plant systems as they relate to the nuclear chemistry environment with a minimum of three years experience in chemistry.Not everyday I hear about this sort of position. Pays well, too, at 90k for Nebraska.
Immediate opening for a LC/MS/MS Scientist and general laboratory manager.
This opportunity will afford the selected candidate a unique opportunity for unlimited professional and personal growth in a rapidly growing toxicology laboratory.
Experience
Education
Teitelbaum would also have us believe that all is well because more students than ever are interested in STEM. If so, why then do 4 times more high school students take the AP Art History test than the AP Computer Science Test? It’s not because of those high wages in art history jobs.If I were to hazard a guess as to why the AP Computer Science test is not often taken, it's because it isn't seen as a key prerequisite to going to college in computer science. (As I recall, and perhaps I am wrong, it's seen as a bit out of date?) Also, I'd think that there's a lot more legacy infrastructure around the AP Art History exam (i.e. a lot more high schools have arts teachers than qualified CS teachers?)
So what’s behind the man bites dog STEM stories? The short answer is ideology. Most of the advocates of no-shortage, including people like Ron Hira, Hal Salzman, Richard Freeman, and of course Teitelbaum are focused more on an agenda of redistribution, ensuring higher wages for workers, including STEM workers. Arguing against shortages is part of a strategy to oppose high-skill immigration policies so that shortages increase even more and already well paid STEM workers get paid even more.
Yet policies established to achieve nothing more than an increase in STEM wages by restricting the supply of workers would have two bad effects. First, they would lead to higher prices for products and services that have STEM talent as a significant input. This would be a transfer payment from all consumers, including low income ones, to some workers, many of whom are already very well paid. Restricting the supply STEM workers would also reduce the competitiveness of U.S. establishments that rely on STEM labor, reducing U.S. jobs and economic growth.Higher wages for workers! What a travesty. It's a frickin' shame that Zuckerberg has to pay so much for developers and corporate America cannot import enough back office folks. Goshdarnit, we're all ideologues.
The complexity is no greater in Japan than it is elsewhere, Harnick says. But cultural differences play a role. “In Japan, there is a long-standing tradition and business practice where large corporations don’t like to be seen downsizing” or cutting jobs, he notes.
At Mitsui, for example, no employee will be laid off when the phenol, acetone, and polyurethane facilities cease to operate, Tannowa says. Laying off employees, he explains, is impractical both financially and in terms of the harm it does to labor relations. “It is not wise to conduct such layoffs,” he says. The 200 or so employees affected will be redeployed, and Mitsui will lower its headcount over the coming years through natural attrition.I wonder at what point US companies transitioned from "we're closing your division, but transferring you elsewhere" to "see ya later." I don't think we're going back.
In one presentation in Orlando, Jason A. Mulder of Boehringer Ingelheim described the challenge of scaling up the fluorination of a versatile synthetic intermediate that his company is using to make a family of new anti-infective drug candidates...
...Mulder’s target was synthesizing methyl 6-chloro-5-(trifluoromethyl)nicotinate on a 100-kg scale at a reasonable cost. At first, Mulder and his colleagues considered buying and modifying a trifluoromethylated precursor. But the one they needed cost about $800 per kg on a 100-kg scale, which was too much, he said. The team then turned to finding a method to make the fluorinated nicotinate from scratch (Org. Process Res. Dev. 2013, 10.1021/op400061w).
...The researchers continued their search and zeroed in on methyl chlorodifluoroacetate (MCDFA). Although the compound would take some massaging to serve as a trifluoromethylating reagent, at $12 per mol on a 100-kg scale, the price was right...
...Copper stabilized by the ligand facilitates formation of difluoromethyl carbene, which couples with fluoride ion added to the reaction to form CF3 ions. The ligand-stabilized copper then coordinates to the heteroaryl ring to displace iodide and transfer CF3 to the ring. The reaction worked with good yield but not without a couple of monkey wrenches thrown in.
For one thing, the team couldn’t achieve a catalytic process on the scale they needed because of competing impurity formation—the larger the reaction, the lower the yield. Running reactions that involve CF3 ion can be problematic because of side reactions of difluoromethyl carbene, Mulder said. The major impurities in this case were by-products with an unwanted fluoroalkyl side chain.
During the reaction, the CF2 carbene likely generates multiple fluorinated alkyl copper species that compete with CuCF3 and react with the iodide, Mulder explained. This radical addition, or telomerization, is how fluorinated polymers such as polytetrafluoroethylene are made. The team actually could see formed polymer floating in the reaction vessel.
To curb carbene formation and telomerization, the researchers had to use just the right amount of copper and fluoride ion. But after running hundreds of reactions using the catalytic route with modified conditions, none of the options proved to be optimal. Although the catalytic process was preferred for its lower copper cost and reduced burden of removing copper salts at the end of the reaction, the team opted to simply use a stoichiometric amount of copper, which cut down on carbene formation and reduced the impurities.
“Our final result was a safe, efficient, scalable process with low impurities that was successfully integrated into the scaled-up synthesis of new drug candidates with an overall cost reduction of 10%,” Mulder concluded. He reiterated that although many trifluoromethylation procedures are available, “finding one that works well on a large scale and at low cost remains a challenge.”Here's how Mulder and coworkers described the polymer formation in their OPRD paper:
Notably, some solids, which appeared to be highly fluorinated polymeric compounds, were observed floating in the crude reaction mixture. This observation helped explain why a minimum of 3 equiv of MDCFA was required for this reaction. These polymeric byproducts were observed to a small extent on lab scale but had minimal impact. However, during the kilo-lab scale-up of the catalytic trifluoromethylation (Table 3, entry 1), these insoluble polymeric impurities made the workup tedious by complicating phase separations and by causing foaming during the reaction and distillation steps....
...Despite great effort, these impurities could not be sufficiently suppressed. Being very similar to the desired product in structure and physical characteristics, these impurities were also very difficult to remove by crystallization at this process stage and downstream. Because of these issues, the stoichiometric copper conditions were pursued for scale-up...What a neat piece of work! Pretty cool.
I was curious what the appropriate CV/resume length is as well as if references should be included on the resume or just sent as a second document for other industry employment. Now that I think of it a follow up - how about publication list? I have always assumed include it but it is getting a bit long.Seems to me that the answer to this is that if you get a request for a resume, you go for 2 pages, and include your best publications. If you get the CV, you give 'em everything. I dunno, though I should. Readers?
The following companies have special agreements with Google and are part of the “Do Not Cold Call” list.
Effective March 6, 2005:
• Genentech, Inc.The belief is that the agreements came from various CEOs that sat on each others' boards. It's my assumption that it was Genentech's IT/computer folks who were on "do not touch" lists. (I mean, I assume that Apple wasn't interested in hiring Genentech molecular biologists or something.)
• Intel Corporation
• Apple Computer
• Paypal, Inc.
• Comcast Corporation
...Just because overt age-discrimination is illegal doesn’t mean it never happens. In 2011, Google settled a multimillion-dollar claim brought by a computer scientist named Brian Reid, who had been fired when he was 54. Reid said colleagues and supervisors had frequently referred to him as “an old man” and “an old fuddy-duddy” whose ideas were “too old to matter.” They allegedly joked that his CD cases should be called LPs. A labor lawyer I spoke with told me he recently got a call from a thirtysomething supervisor at a start-up who said her job was at risk because the team she was managing—most of them ten years younger—had rejected her on account of her age. “She was being referred to as a ‘den mother,’ ” says the lawyer. “If no one is following your lead, you’re not much of a supervisor.”
Still, ageism in Silicon Valley is usually more subtle: an extra burden of proof on the middle-aged to show they can hack it, on a scale very few workers of their vintage must deal with anywhere else. “People presume an older developer learned some trade skill five to ten years ago and has been coasting on it ever since,” says a 40-plus developer whose department consists mostly of 20-year-olds...The article should really be called "Silicon Valley VCs prefer pitches from young people", but the stories are interesting nonetheless.
University of California, Los Angeles, chemistry professor Patrick Harran had another trial court status check last week. The result is another status check scheduled for June 5. Harran faces trial on four counts of felony violations of the state labor code relating to the 2009 death of Sheharbano (Sheri) Sangji from injuries sustained in a fire in Harran’s lab.
The case is on hold in the trial court while a California appellate court considers a petition filed by Harran’s legal team on Oct. 24, 2013, to try to get the case dismissed. The current deadline for the district attorney’s or attorney general’s offices to file opposition arguments is April 9, then Harran’s team has until April 30 to reply.The legal system grinds on. I suspect that the case might be dismissed on the question as to whether or not CalOSHA/the LA district attorney can charge Patrick Harran with the felony violations, if he was not Sheri Sangji's employer, as opposed to her supervisor.
A recent issue of Wired magazine features a science blog by Deborah Blum on the toxicity of 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol (MCHM). It is a well-written piece of history and current information by a Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer.
Reading the blog made me, as a chemist, feel ashamed of the harms that have been visited upon our society by the chemical industry and those who have made use of chemicals over the past many decades. It would be so easy to simply eschew personal responsibility for the many environmental sins, past and present. After all, what can I, as a resident of the state of Florida, do about a mess that has been made in West Virginia? But that mess, as with many others all over the country, exists because we lack laws, regulations, and enforcement that would have prevented them from occurring.
We lack those laws and enforcements in part because we chemists, who among all the citizens of this society should be most knowledgeable, have been negligent in our moral obligations to be proactive. We have not made it our business to advocate for stricter regulation of the production and uses of chemicals. Nor have we advocated for more vigorous monitoring and more ardent prosecution at all levels of government of those who put us in harm’s way through practices that pursue profits at the expense of our well-being. Our obligations extend to informing our fellow citizens, through every means available: letters and phone calls to our legislators and to the editor of our local paper, blogs, participation in local environmental group efforts, and so on. But of course, to be informative we must be informed, and that takes commitment.
Finally, we can and should ask: What is the American Chemical Society doing? Where does it stand? How much of its resources are being deployed to make this a safer world? The answer, I fear, is not much. Again, where is the commitment?
Theodore L. BrownI've been meaning to write on this awhile now, but this letter is a good chance to state my qualms on this approach: where does the moral, legal and/or financial obligations end for chemists, with respect to chemicals that they sell? So far as I can tell, the root causes of the West Virginia disaster (i.e. an entire metropolitan area unable to use its drinking water for um, drinking) were as follows:
Bonita Springs, Fla.
One day in 1957, my resin salesman at Reichold Chemicals came by and handed me a piece of polyurethane foam. I poured some styrene and resin on it, and it didn't melt. So I started building a fiberglass mold for a surfboard with it, which I knew was the future. I rented a building in Laguna Canyon that became a secret shop, and after two years of experimenting, we built the molds and got it done. We replaced the balsa wood with the foam, and the boards were strong and light. We started selling the foam-core boards, kicking up production to 20 boards a week.
I was making enough to cover everything. We lived in a cheap house on Dana Point. We cleared more than $10 a board, which sold for $100 each, and we made 200 boards a week at the peak.It's neat to learn how chemistry helped the surfing industry. (Think he was using PPE with that styrene?)
