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Alnylam Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Job applicants “don’t necessarily have to have a science
background, but they absolutely have to have a love of science,”
Anderson says. “They should be curious and should
have begun the journey of being self-taught.” At her company,
“The people we hire are curious about the science
and the landscape and where it’s going,” she adds. “We also
see a lot of individuals who have dedicated themselves to
life sciences, even if they’re a finance person or an HR person.”
In a way, it becomes a lifestyle: “Once you’re in that
life sciences work, you kind of get hooked.”
While many biotech firms do little to help employees
broaden their knowledge beyond their job silos, Alynlam
initiates the scientific education process immediately. On
a hiree’s first day, he or she gets a quick overview of RNA
interference (RNAi, the process underlying all of the company’s
investigational drugs) and an app with an online
RNAi tutorial. “At the 90-day mark, we do a deeper dive
into RNAi, with a further tutorial by a couple of senior
scientists,” Anderson says. In addition, Alnylam holds
workshops on topics such as drug development, and opens
its meetings with its scientific advisory board to all employees,
who can listen as outside experts debate the firm’s
research directions.
Many biotechnology companies also turn to external
training firms such as BioTech Primer of Baltimore,
Maryland, which specializes in biotechnology training for
business employees without a science background. Bio-
Tech Primer’s instructors work in industry “and can tell
their war stories to illustrate how companies get a product
from the lab into the marketplace,” says Stacey Franklin,
founder and CEO. “We also spend a lot of time keeping
current with the science, which is always moving forward
at lightning speed.”
The classes begin with the basics, for people who haven’t
studied it since high school, but quickly move into the science,
discovery and development processes used by the
biotech industry. Non-scientists walk away better able to
communicate with their colleagues and clients.
“People move around in a company and companies are
always acquiring new technology,” Franklin says. “With
each move and each acquisition comes the challenge of
learning. Those who have been in the industry for a while
also attend because our instruction provides a framework
in which they can connect the knowledge they have with
the new knowledge they now require.”
In one class, she says, the lead attorney for a major biopharmaceutical
firm sat next to a manufacturing employee
with a high school education. The attorney had never
been exposed to manufacturing operations and was full of
questions. “It’s those interactions that make our courses so
valuable,” she says. “Everyone learns from our instructors
and each other.”
LEARNING BEYOND
STRAIGHT SCIENCE
“Technical people are trained to think technically: As
long as you’ve got the best technology, that’s all that’s important,”
says Arthur Boni, a technology and biotechnology
entrepreneur and professor of entrepreneurship at the
Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University
(CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. “It’s a revelation to a
lot of them that creating value in the marketplace can be
even more important.”
That’s just one way in which filling in the interdisciplinary
gaps is a different exercise for scientists and
engineers. With these employees, “a strong science background
is necessary to be effective in a science-based industry,
but it’s not sufficient,” says Casper. “You need to
learn more about how the science is translated into society,
the business of science and some of the ethical issues.”
His school’s mission is “to take scientists and give
them the training experience—especially experiential,
team-based learning—to make them more effective in
industry,” Casper says. “Some of our students go to R&D
in industry, but in the vast majority of jobs they’re doing
something else, such as program management, business
development, operations or consulting.” For these
roles, Casper says, people with technical training need to
learn both hard and soft skills—among them, collaborating
with people who might have wildly different backgrounds
and skills. “You can’t just be a smart person; you
also need to learn how to work effectively with people on
teams,” he says.
Grasping other professional languages is the key to interdisciplinary
teamwork. “You need to be able to translate
your ideas effectively into another person’s language rather
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