Career Development
Pankajini Mallick, PhD (she/her/hers)
Principal Scientist
Neurocrine
San Diego, California
Annette Bak, Ph.D, M.B.A., FAAPS (she/her/hers)
Head of Advanced Drug Delivery
Astra Zeneca
Weston, Massachusetts
Venus Huang, PhD (she/her/hers)
Business Development Manager
TriLink Biotechnologies
Why Does Business Acumen Really Matter? Degree is not enough, having business know-how makes you highly desirable candidate and employee. You don’t learn about business concepts during your graduate program. So, it’s up to students to make the effort and seek out the information you need. Business acumen doesn’t mean the ability to say smart-sounding business words, it refers to a deep understanding of current industry trends. Industries are highly innovative and evolve at a rapid pace. To be successful, you need to be aware of these trends and the implications each trend has on a specific project. No matter what role you are targeting in industry, every position in an organization will require business knowledge. You cannot think like an academic and rest on the accomplishments of your thesis if you want to succeed in industry. It just won’t work. Instead, you must adopt a business mindset and take the time to learn key business concepts. In this AAPS session, speakers will share their experience on how they developed their business acumen and will provide key business concepts.
Merger & Acquisition (M&A), in-licensing and co-developed assets are an integral part of the lifecycle of almost every pharma organization, whether it is being acquired or orchestrating deals to drive growth and innovation to protect a product’s pipeline. Thus, the current business climate has executives seeking more employees with a broader range of business expertise. Scientists in pharmaceutical companies often become project managers, yet, when they are moved into these roles, they receive little to no project management training. Leaders want managers to focus on the big picture of the business, cultivate relationships across the culture, and contribute to the advancement of the company’s goals. Managing project demands a variety of abilities, from scientific and technical expertise, leadership and communication skills to business acumen. It’s not simply a matter of subject-area expertise, but an individual’s ability to understand various dimensions of a business that are in play as situations arise. Good communication "goes a long way in terms of career development and no scientist is a self-sustaining organism, so should learn how to network and collaborate, and strong leadership is extremely important. Our speakers will speak to their strategies that enabled them to be charge of their projects and provide a framework of effective process to help you move your projects along and advance in your career.
So, lets learn how to “Take stock in yourself”.