Pharma keeps shedding jobs, abandoning employees in Philly area

In 2010 and 2011, pharma led all commercial sectors of the economy in terms of the absolute number of layoffs.  Only government and non-profits put more people on the streets.

What do all these layoffs and closures mean for the tens of thousands of people in the Philly metro area, many of whom spent decades working in the pharmaceutical industry?

For a large number of pharma's professional-level employees who suffered layoffs in recent years, their economic reversals have not been confined to a few months looking for new positions.  Especially for those older than 50, a layoff was their one-way ticket out of the industry.

Jeff's K.'s recent experience at trying to regain a full-time position in pharma is similar to what others have faced.  (Jeff asked that his real name be withheld, as he fears prospective employers in the industry might hold his candid remarks against him.)

Shortly after earning his MBA, Jeff started working in 1984 for a Delaware Valley Big Pharma as a primary care rep calling on West Coast physicians.  Three years of doing that prepared him for a better opportunity at another Big Pharma, this one in New Jersey.

Jeff moved up the ladder during the twelve years he spent at this second company, starting as a hospital rep and then a sales district manager.  A move to company headquarters followed with positions in sales training, marketing research and, eventually, oncology marketing.

Then Jeff transferred to a small pharma back in the Philly suburbs where he re-launched a major hematology product.  After four years there, he got back into the oncology business in 2001 by switching to another Big Pharma in the Delaware Valley as the marketing director of emerging oncology brands.  He stayed there for five years then took a similar job at GlaxoSmithKline in the suburbs here.

The work at GSK provided its satisfactions, until 2014 when the company sold its oncology business to Novartis.  Then after 30 years of experience in pharma, marked by steadily increasing responsibilities across a range of business functions, Jeff was without a job.  Although he has gone on job interviews in the eight months since leaving GSK, none of them resulted in a new position.

After reflecting on his truncated career in pharmaceuticals, Jeff developed several sobering lessons for people currently working in the industry and for those considering careers there.

First, he feels people should bear in mind that the vast majority of them will only be able to work in pharma until they reach the age of 50.  Before they reach that age, Jeff believes they should diligently prepare themselves to work at something else from 50 until retirement.  That may involve working for a pharma supplier, although opportunities there have declined commensurately with those on the manufacturing side.  After looking around at others who started working in pharma when he did, Jeff believes it is increasingly common and necessary to switch to other occupations in other sectors.

Regardless of the alternatives after 50, Jeff cautions that while compensation, benefits and the intellectual challenges to be found in pharma may surpass those in many other industries, people entering the drug business should know that their ride will come to an abrupt halt in middle age.

"Marketing in other industries is a young person's game," according to Jeff.  "That makes sense in packaged goods, beverages, consumer electronics or other sectors where your customers are housewives and other people in their thirties.  Pharma didn't used to be that way.  Here your major influencers ["Key Opinion Leaders"], many of your everyday physicians and a large percentage of end-users are either in their fifties or even older than that."

The "over-financialization of pharma" changed that calculus, according to Jeff, because finance officers don't recognize factors such as experience or knowing what works and what doesn't in various circumstances.  Finance just sees people as interchangeable cogs and those beyond 50 cost more.

"So every three or four years," Jeff maintains, "a new cohort comes in and they have to learn the same lessons, usually by repeating the same mistakes."

The next lesson is that those people beyond 50 who want to continue drawing a paycheck from pharma must be prepared to make at least two major sacrifices.  The first involves a willingness to pick up and leave the Delaware Valley for places such as Boston or San Francisco.  That sounds easier than what it is because, despite the disruption that such a move causes at any age, especially in this era of two-career families, relocation is generally far easier at 30 or 35 than at 50.

"The other sacrifice the industry imposes at 50," according to Jeff, "is that you'll likely have to take a job you may have done 15 years ago, only now you'll have to do it for a lot less money than what you were making in your last job."

Even then, many prospective employers doubt that a candidate will be comfortable taking several backward steps in a career, especially if it involves reporting to a supervisor who is 20 years younger.

Jeff and a score of others whom we came to know in pharma during recent years are bright, resourceful, well educated people.  At their present ages, most of them would be at the top of their fields in professions such as medicine, law, architecture or teaching.  Pharma, on the other hand, has cast them out in the manner of draught horses that can no longer pull a wagon.

It would be interesting hearing from readers to learn how their experiences working for pharma companies in this area compare to Jeff's.  After all, it's likely that a majority of them have earned graduate degrees and their experiences can tell us a lot about the changing meaning of work in the Delaware Valley.

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