• Question: What is your long term aim in the pharmaceutical industry?

    Asked by 502prmc56 to Lesley, Alex, Laura, Richard, vediacan on 12 Jun 2015. This question was also asked by Kitkat3, 972prmc53, Mim.
    • Photo: Richard Prince

      Richard Prince answered on 12 Jun 2015:

      I don’t work in the pharmaceutical industry but lots of my students do when they go on placement or when they finish their degrees. I guess my aims are to keep the industry supplied with enthusiastic new scientists and to keep up good relations between the University and companies like Astra Zeneca, so that we can carry on giving students the opportunity to do industrial placements as part of their degree.
      If you get the chance to study a degree that has some form of industrial or professional experience then you should seriously think about doing it. I was really lucky and had two fantastic placements in the pharmaceutical industry when I was doing my B.Sc. at Bath. The first one was at Hoechst in Frankfurt, and I worked on drugs to treat liver cirrhosis. The second one was also in Germany – at Beecham Wulfing. That one was really interesting (looking for drugs to treat high blood pressure) AND they paid me really well!! You get to do things on placement that universities can’t offer e.g. work with state of the art equipment and you get really good at doing experiments because you spend all your time in the laboratory. In universities you would probably only get 3-6 hours of lab time a week.
      Best wishes
      Richard

    • Photo: Vedia Can

      Vedia Can answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      Hi 502prmc56,

      Really good question.
      My long term aim is to become an academic (in the field of Pharmacology) and to be able to set-up and lead my own research group. If this doesn’t plan out, my next aim would be to become a “Qualified Person”. This is someone who is responsible for checking that the medicines a Pharmaceutical company makes have the correct ingredients and in the right amounts, ensuring the medication you take is safe.

      Best Wishes,

      Vedia

    • Photo: Alex Agyemang

      Alex Agyemang answered on 16 Jun 2015:

      Hi 502prmc56,

      My aim is to continue to work on innovative drug candidates to change the treatment landscape and improve people’s lives because for example, people who have Type 1 diabetes have to take up to 5 insulin injections everyday which has a significant impact on the quality of their lives. My goal is to be able to contribute to advances in the treatment of such diseases.

      Best wishes,
      Alex

    • Photo: Laura Newton

      Laura Newton answered on 16 Jun 2015:

      Hey 502!

      That’s a tough question! I’m not even sure of the answer to it honestly. I’m doing my PhD at the moment (so kind of still studying) but after that I’m not really sure what I want to do. I might stay in research and try and lead my own team of researchers one day, or I might try and realise a childhood ambition of becoming a forensic scientist, or maybe a clinical biochemist working in a hospital. Or I might leave the lab and work more ‘behind the scenes’ in science as a writer or journalist or publisher. I know I want to stay connected to science somehow though!

      Thanks for your question!
      Laura

Comments