Welcome!

Hi everyone, I figured it was time for another update since it has been five (very short) months since my previous post! In this update, I’ll be talking about new experiences at Astellas, job hunting, the current MBiotech semester, and what is coming up in the final four months of the program.

Astellas

I’m now nearing the end of the year-long internship at Astellas. The end of the learning curve is nowhere in sight; I have been consistently exposed to new information in my own role and through conversations with my colleagues in other departments.

The pharmaceutical industry is so nuanced that there’s always something more to learn, to understand, to consider. Canada’s government and healthcare industry are constantly changing, which impacts the way pharmaceutical companies like Astellas conduct their business.

In October, I was fortunate enough to attend Astellas’ Fall National Sales Meeting in Vancouver (picture above), a city that I have always been curious about but never really had a reason to visit!

As MBiotech interns come closer to the end of the year, we all develop a new hobby – job hunting.

Job Hunt

At the end of your internship, there are four potential outcomes:

1. Your company will extend your contract, also turning it into a full-time position.
2. Your company will offer you a full-time, permanent position.
3. You will obtain a full-time contract/permanent job at another company.
4. You will be temporarily unemployed.

In industry, you’ll quickly learn about a concept called “headcounts”. Each company is limited on the number of full-time (permanent) employees (also dubbed “FTEs”) they can bring on, and each FTE uses up 1 headcount. As a result, there is competition between employees to obtain a headcount for themselves. By law, companies can only keep you in a contractual position for up to two years, at the end of which they must offer you a permanent position or let you go.

Typically, at the end of your internship, it will be easier for you to score another year on contract since it’s less of an investment and risk from the company’s point of view. Once you’ve got two years of industry experience under your belt, you will have twice the leverage. However, you might also be an all-star and land yourself a full-time permanent role straight after your internship. It happens. The worst-case scenario is that you do not land an opportunity before the end of your contract and you’re out of work. Luckily, the industry is fairly tight-knit and it’s easy to leverage connections, which brings me to my next point.

When I was interviewing, I quickly learned that everybody knows everybody. At one of my interviews, my interviewer had actually worked with my current manager and knew several other people at my company. You will constantly find that people who join your organization are often MBiotech graduates themselves from several years ago, which always makes for an interesting icebreaker. A quick browse through LinkedIn will show you just how interconnected this industry is. It is therefore important to build a good reputation because you never know where or when it might come in handy.

Lastly, to anyone who is interested in MBiotech or even in MBiotech right now, if you’re gunning to stay at the company where you hope to land your internship, be sure to research if the position is designated for interns only. Some pharmaceutical companies have positions that they’ve reserved for MBiotech interns, which means that the likelihood of you continuing in that role past a year is slim. Just a heads up.  I would recommend asking an MBiotech alumnus who has interned in that role or at that company for guidance.

This Semester (September 2019 – December 2019)

The summer came to an abrupt end in September, as the days immediately became shorter and weekly Tuesday evening classes came around the corner. This semester, both the junior and senior students participate in a seminar series course where the first set of lectures are presentations by leaders in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry, and the second half for group presentations by the junior class. In my opinion, the first half of the class wasn’t as interesting this year as it was last year. Anywho, as seniors, we are assigned one junior team to mentor as they prepare their presentation and another junior team to “dragon” or judge during their official presentation. I am part of the dragon panel for the group that is presenting next week, so I will let you know how that goes in the January 2020 MBiotech update.

One of the major assignments in this course is the Disruptive Tech in Healthcare paper, where we have to pick one disruptive technology in healthcare and make a case for why it will be a dominant technology in the next five years. The professor this year is pretty lax, so this was not very stressful.

This is the first year in MBiotech where the program has debuted its “Digital Health” stream, composed of 10 students who will have an educational focus on programming and technology throughout the MBiotech program. For new applicants to the program, they will now have the choice to choose between the Digital Health curriculum versus the original stream (I’m forgetting the name they assigned it – Biosciences or something).

Final Semester (January 2020 – April 2020)

In the final semester of MBiotech, I will be taking the standard evening class in addition to two electives: Decision Analytics and GAMBiT. It’s going to be a heavy course load to manage alongside working, but I will do my best. These are electives that I assume will be offered to future MBiotech students, so I hope to do a thorough review in a potential April/May 2020 MBiotech update to help others decide whether they’re worth enrolling in or not.

The End

Thanks for reading – see you in January! Happy Holidays & New Year!