According to MassBioEd, 19% of degree holders work in biotech.
23% in healthcare.
14% in educational institutions.
44% of degree holders ended up working in non-life science industries, such as real estate, finance, and transportation.
The same stubborn mold kept reappearing in the cell incubator. No matter how diligently April Qian and her colleagues sanitized the lab, reset their experiments, and searched for the cause, it always found its way back.
“It was frustrating,” said Qian.
That, along with other unsatisfying moments in the research process, led Qian — a Middlebury College graduate with degrees in biochemistry and molecular biology — to decide not to pursue a career in the biotech industry, a field she had dreamed of joining since high school.
Repetitive day-to-day work, lack of immediate positive feedback on long term research, and the invisible weight of pressure to achieve were among the reasons for her departure. But Qian’s change of heart is far from rare.
Of the more than 200,000 life science degree holders in Massachusetts, four out of five choose not to pursue careers in the biotech industry according to the Massachusetts Biotechnology Education Foundation (MassBioEd) . Those who opt for other paths often cite the rigorous degree requirements, the desire for the mental satisfaction that comes from seeing quick and positive outcomes, and concerns about being laid off. Despite recent layoffs, however, MassBioEd still projects a high demand for talent, with a projected 27% job growth for scientists in Massachusetts to drive the research and development of new drugs and therapies in the next ten years.
Choosing a different path
Where did the four out of five degree holders who chose not to pursue biotech end up?
Kuijun Wang, a Chinese student with an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania in biostatistics, is one of those who switched to healthcare.
“I wanted to work for biotech or biopharmaceutical companies,” said Wang, who says she was limited because of her lack of a Ph.D. That’s not the case for other life science industries. Wang has found work as a software engineer at Fathom, a healthcare company in California.
“I think for R&D (research and development) a Ph.D. is seen as pretty mandatory these days,” said Julio Gagne, a vice president at Kite Pharma based in California. “A doctorate degree is especially important to break into leadership.”
However, the five years, or even longer, needed to get a doctorate is challenging, given the limited stipend and the need to cope with the repeated failures that are part of doing scientific experiments. Gagne compares the frustrations of doing research with a sports metaphor.
“Imagine if you were a soccer player on a team that loses every game for three years,” said Gagne. “It would be incredibly demoralizing.”
Some, like Qian, who need the mental satisfaction of immediate positive results, choose other career paths. Those who stay worry whether they can get — and keep — job, considering the layoffs occurring in the industry.
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There's an opportunity cost to the journey of obtaining a doctorate, considering the limited stipend for students, since graduates can earn more by pursuing other jobs in healthcare.
“I don’t want to take the minimal stipend for a five-year Ph.D., when alternatively I can make six figures as a machine learning engineer,” said Wang, who once considered pursuing a doctoral degree but gave up.
Wang said she won’t consider switching back to the life science industry, even though healthcare and life sciences overlap significantly. “I’m taking machine learning courses now,” Wang said. “I would love to work in [that field] in the future. Of course, the pay is better, too.”
Layoffs are happening
Since the beginning of 2024, biotech companies — from large corporations likeing Moderna, Pfizer and Novartis, to small startups — have all announced layoffs, according to a live tracker in Fierce Biotech.
Gagne believes the job losses may be a result of the industry's culture of “continuous failure.” Creating new stuff is always hard and that’s especially true in biotech. According to the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, overall success rates for a new drug to make it from Phase I testing to final FDA approval is only 9%.
The pipeline for a new drug, from discovery to post-marketing, usually takes a decade or more and costs millions of dollars. With all the investment of money and time, layoffs or even bankruptcy often occur if a drug fails, especially in small biotech companies.
Amylyx Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company in Cambridge, is an example of what can happen then. On April 4, Amlyx failed a Phase III trial for a drug treating ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. As a result, they pulled the ALS therapy off the market and are laying off about 70% of their staff.
Gagne thinks that being laid off doesn’t mean someone needs to leave biotech.
He was laid off while working as an executive director at ImmunoGen, a biotech company in Waltham when their leading drug failed during Phase III trials. On the verge of bankruptcy, they laid off half of the staff. Later, they redesigned the experiment, passed Phase III. The company raised additional funds and is now doing well but he'd already left. Now, Gagne’s current firm, Kite, is also undergoing layoffs.
“We laid off, I think 7% [of our workforce]. But then we put in about 2% brand new jobs,” said Gagne. “It was more of a restructuring.... Some of the people that were laid off were able to take some of these new jobs.” Gagne believes that the large number of layoffs happening in the same time period may be a “coincidence” as many companies are restructuring their businesses.
No matter if it is a coincidence or not, layoffs have affected many people. Stanley Gill is one of them.
Gill was shocked and frustrated when he was laid off from his first post-doctoral industry job just 10 months after graduating from Harvard University with a doctorate in niological and niomedical sciences.
"I knew there might be layoffs, but I didn't expect it would happen to me," Gill said.
Gill believes that part of the current layoffs resulted from overhiring during the COVID-19 pandemic, when a surge of funds flowed into biotech as venture capitalists saw potential high returns because “people ‘discovered’ biotech was something worth investing in to save society, but now there’s a contraction in jobs because of there being less investment funds in general.”
The data also shows that. An industry analysis from JLL reveals that nationwide venture capital investments in biotech peaked at over $45 billion in 2021. This influx of funding spurred job growth, with life sciences employment in Massachusetts rising by 11.6% from 2021 to 2023, according to MassBioEd.
In 2024, projected venture capital investments decreased to $28 billion. With reduced funding, biotech companies, particularly startups, are hiring fewer people. Recent job growth has slowed, increasing by only 2.5% in 2023.
"Companies now have less money than in 2021," said Aaron Larsen, the Chief Scientific Officer at Circle Labs Bio, a biotech startup in Cambridge. "So we are more cautious about hiring."
Future demand for talent in biotech in Massachusetts is high
Although the biotech industry is facing challenges, the future demand for life science talent remains high due to continued investment from venture capital and the need for new drugs, according to MassBioEd.
Between 2023 and 2033, biotech companies in Massachusetts are projected to add 7,260 management positions, the largest increase among job categories. Scientist roles follow closely, with an expected increase of 7,216 positions. Math and statistics roles are anticipated to have the highest growth rate within the industry, projected at 53%.
Gagne is optimistic about the industry in the future.
“Biotech is a recession-proof industry, he explained. “People get sick no matter how the economy [is].”
Despite the current downturn in the biotech industry, Gill remains actively engaged in the job market.
“It is my passion,” said Gill, “my work is actually helping people.”
