‘’Companies are hiring in R&D and regulatory divisions’’

What are some of the job profiles in the pharmaceutical industry that are in demand?

Kamal Karanth

The pharma industry is growing at a phenomenal rate and has a very strong chance of doubling the industry size. They are increasingly looking at investing in R&D, and regulatory divisions. Hence job profiles across these two sectors have seen a spike in hiring at critical positions. Both are high paying jobs. With pharma companies exploring newer emerging markets which in turn have their unique regulatory requirements, there is a greater need to have personnel stationed in these markets to ensure a smooth entry for their drugs. Any failure to do would result in heavy losses to the company with each drug on an average costing $300-400 million.

Where is the healthcare sector sourcing its workforce from?

Four to five lakh new jobs are being created in healthcare sector which is witnessing a robust growth. Not being a very evolved sector, there is a severe crunch of readily available workforce. So the pharma workforce happens to be the choice of preference for them, since both have a sales driven culture with evolved processes and technology. So, we can say that pharma is providing replacement workforce to healthcare. This is responsible for a fair amount of attrition at the mid to senior level in pharma companies.

Are there any new jobs being created in pharma like healthcare?

New job creation is happening in the pharma sector at the back end in production level, where the demand seems to be, barring a few companies who are expanding in India. There is a lot of hiring at technical level in companies which are expanding. Hospira, Glenmark, Lupin, Cipla, Strides Arcolab, Sun are all on a hiring spree. Bal Pharma, a subsidiary of Microlabs has opened a big plant in Uttarakhand. Unless it is a new company, it is unlikely that the plant would generate more jobs at front office. The plants supplement exports to international markets.

How has hiring been across levels in the past year?

On an average there has been 40 per cent hiring at entry level (freshers). But for a company like Abbott it would be higher at around 50 per cent, since more people would need to be deputed across various locations in India. These are at the sales level. 30 per cent hiring happens at the next level i.e, area managers etc at the factory level. The rest comprise the leadership team including the CEO, business heads, product heads, regulatory heads. In the existing market, there is 25 per cent attrition at the entry level and 15-20 per cent at the middle management. Rest of the categories, attrition is less than 10 per cent.

Which others sectors in pharma are on an upswing?

There are many new companies coming up in diagnostics. Additional penetration of medical insurance, an affluent middle class, awareness of testing and a reasonable amount of people being pushed to middle age is fuelling the growth of diagnostic companies. These are growing at the rate of 50 to 60 per cent and hence continously need employees. This puts additional pressure on the pharma sector because that is from where most recruitments happen. Companies in clinical research are also on a steady growth curve and require people for back office work. There is a 20 per cent job addition on an annual basis in these companies. The devices sector which has small, profitable market, with Abott, J&J, Becton Dickinson as the major players must have hired 30 per cent more as compared to last year.

What are the challenges while hiring for R&D divisions?

Companies ideally expect to hire a post doctoral candidate from abroad with a commercial background. What they don’t realise is that people already absorbed in the workforce abroad are less likely to return back to India as compared to someone who is an academician. There have been instances wherein highly qualified candidates with Ph.D. from a reputed Indian university and international recognition for research have been turned down by companies on account of lack of experience. Finally, these people end up getting absorbed in sales function of MNCs, instead of R&D where their skills lie.

[email protected]