As President Obama has begun his Insourcing campaign, designed to bring more manufacturing jobs back onshore, Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business released results of its latest survey of offshoring and outsourcing practices. Companies that have moved processes offshore say they have gained in flexibility and agility, and the ability to compete in challenging economic environments, Duke says.

Every year we at Pharmaceutical Manufacturing conduct a Job Satisfaction and Salary Survey. This year marks our eighth year, and we would love your input if you’re employed in the pharma/biopharma industry. It’s important to note that this survey isn’t just about quantitative data.

If you haven’t been exposed to “xtranormal” yet, the video below is a good introduction. Xtranormal allows you to create virtual conversations between characters you create. Here, Mike is a chemist in his first day on the job at a major pharma company, while Heidi is charged with his orientation. As you’ll see, life in Big Pharma is not all that Mike had thought it would be.

In our last post (“Manufacturing and Millennials: Is Bad PR the Problem?”), manufacturing experts lamented the fact that today's young people, particularly in the U.S., just don’t see Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) careers as sexy enough.

The anonymous blogger Chemjobber has been plying his trade as a writer for the past several years. By day, he is a process chemist at an unnamed drug/chemical manufacturer. “I'm anonymous because 'who I am' is really a distraction and it's not very interesting,” he says. “Also, it's a good way of keeping my personal and professional lives separate.” (See below for our conversation.)

Bayer and its workers in Berkeley, California, are embroiled in protracted contract negotiations. Last week, we heard from Craig Merrilees, spokesman for the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU), which represents the workers. Bayer owes workers and the community more, said Merrilees, and worker patience with the company is “wearing thin," he said.

The contentious negotiations between Bayer and the 400 or so unionized workers at its Berkeley, California biotech facility have become a test case for whether workers in pharma/biopharma (and other industries) have any leverage whatsoever in the face of potential or expected downsizing and outsourcing.

ostrich

The ostrich has become a staple of many pharmaceutical science presentations of late, symbolizing an industry that is reluctant to change. Perhaps it could symbolize some of the more shortsighted pharma CEO's at this point in the 21st century. With all due respect, as CEOs face a tough balancing act today, I have a few questions for this elite group:

In our February issue, we’ll share results of our annual job satisfaction and salary survey. Thanks so much to the hundreds of you who have already participated. (There’s still time if you haven’t—click here.) The early returns are showing that you are, more than ever, feeling overworked, underappreciated, and burned out.

Most of the U.S. Department of Justice’s major pharma-related decisions invoking the False Claims Act recently have involved illegal marketing and sales. So far, GSK’s is the only one to deal with current good manufacturing practices (cGMP’s).  Read on for a roundup of the top 20 recent cases from Taxpayers Against Fraud (TAF).