Before I forget, a nice profile of Salvatore DiRosa, an Italian medicinal chemist in last week's C&EN (article by Andrea Widener), including finding a position after a site closure:
2013: Surviving a company’s demise
La Rosa had been at Siena [CJ's note: Siena Biotech, in Tuscany] for nine years when the company, which was owned by a bank, fell victim to the recent global financial crisis. “I was still there, but I knew what was happening. It was one of those situations where you say, ‘What am I doing here? I’m waiting for this situation to collapse.’ ”
Today: Finding cures for children’s tumors
A former colleague offered La Rosa a job in New York City at the nonprofit Children’s Tumor Foundation, which supports research into neurofibromatosis, a benign tumor that can be debilitating. Now La Rosa is vice president for R&D. Working with patients and doctors is completely different from working in industry, he says. And he loves it. “There is a really strong drive to do something that is useful for patients today.”
Italian biotech companies can be owned by banks? Huh.
CJ-About your comment, "Italian biotech companies can be owned by banks?" Yea why not if Mafioso can own the bankbank?
ReplyDeleteI searched your site for "site closing" and found this interesting list in the commments of a 2010 site closing post. How many more have been added to the list over the past 6 years??
ReplyDelete"Number of large US pharmaceutical R&D sites shuttered in past 15 years – Syntex, Searle, Sterling, UpJohn, Park-Davis, Bayer, Berlex, Alza, JNJ – Ortho, Monsanto pharma, Dupont pharma, P&G pharma, Glaxo – RTP (plus 4 R&D sites around the world), Robins, Knoll (BASF), 3M pharma, Ciba Summit, Burroughs-Wellcome, Rorer, Merrill-Dow, Rhone-Poulenc, Sanofi-Aventis, Wyeth (6 sites), Lederle, Pfizer – New London, AstraZeneca – Delaware (multiple sites in the EU), Schering Plough – Union site, Merck (ex-US Merck Frosst and Organon plus multiple other EU sites)"