Life Sciences Industry Threatened by Skills Shortage
Published: Apr 19, 2019
By Mark Terry
There is something of a recurring theme among the life science, healthcare and biopharma industries: a shortage of skilled employees will lead to a decrease in innovation. It’s not that the educational system is somehow letting these industries down, it’s more that these industries are changing so quickly, it’s difficult to keep up.
A recent op-ed written by Ian Marison, founder and chief executive officer of the Biofactory Competence Center in Fribourg, Switzerland, and Peter Levison, executive director of Business Development for Pall Biotech, which appeared in PharmaExec, emphasized this point. They note that the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and process analytical technology (PAT) in drug production, as well as various approaches using data science, big data, and machine learning, are requiring life scientists with mathematical and computing skills.
They write, “A survey last year by the Coalition of State Bioscience Institutes found that traditional manufacturing positions were the easiest functional roles to fill; the layoffs experienced towards the end of last year do indeed suggest an oversupply of such employees. But when you look at the skill sets required to manage biopharmaceutical manufacturing processes—in particular around engineering, data analytics and process development—the skill set shortage challenge persists.”
This also appears to be more prevalent in Europe, particularly as Brexit remains in limbo. In February, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) warned that the UK was in “danger of losing its world-leading research and development status, backed by the country’s two biggest pharma investors, AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline.”
An analyst with GlobalData wrote that in the past decade the UK has seen a 16 percent increase in students studying STEM topics. However, the number of EU students studying STEM topics in the UK rose more than 52 percent over the same period, with the number of non-EU students raising more than 63 percent.
The analyst, Gavin Davidson, wrote, “With Brexit creating lots of uncertainty in the UK’s future, there is no denying that it could act as a deterrent for overseas higher education students coming to the UK to study and then work. Restrictions currently being debated in the Commons in the form of a post-Brexit immigration bill would see immigrants earning less than Á30,000 facing restrictions—something which would hit many undergraduates and graduates starting out in the R&D sector.”
Marison and Levison note that the academic institutions do a great job in serving the life sciences sector, citing innovation hubs in Boston in the U.S. and Cambridge in the UK, as well as emerging centers of excellence in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. “The problem is not with the quality of the students coming through these programs, or with the standard of education they are getting. Rather it is the practical industry understanding—or lack of it—that these students have when it comes to applying scientific knowledge in an industry setting.”
Levison uses that statement as a kicking-off point for his own company, Pall Biotech, which offers a lot of practical training.
BioSpace source:
https://www.biospace.com/article/life-science-industry-threatened-by-skills-shortage
