Difficult times for medicinal chemists

[skanda]

Medicinal chemists are currently in a risky position and their future seems doughtful. This is the opinion of the majority of experts from what i have noticed. For example an article from ACS http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/ml200297a. Synthetic organic chemistry is gradually losing it's necessity and more biologics enter the pharma industry. It seems as if companies are no longer looking for more and better drugs but cheaper ones . Drugs that deal with Alzheimer and CNS agents are ignored because of their high costs. Can it be inferred from all this, that the time of medicinal chemists as the elite of pharmaceuticals is over? Anyhow, more and more people are unemployed and talented pharmaceutical scientists are being wasted. Thank you for your time.

Bonus article:

http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2011_12_09/caredit.a1100136

[Anders Hoveland]

Medicinal chemists are currently in a risky position and their future seems doughtful. This is the opinion of the majority of experts from what i have noticed.

 

Much of the chemical industry is being outsourced to China, where the wages for highly educated chemists and engineers are much lower.

[Dr. Lennox]

Medicinal chemists are currently in a risky position and their future seems doughtful. This is the opinion of the majority of experts from what i have noticed. For example an article from ACS http://pubs.acs.org/....1021/ml200297a. Synthetic organic chemistry is gradually losing it's necessity and more biologics enter the pharma industry. It seems as if companies are no longer looking for more and better drugs but cheaper ones . Drugs that deal with Alzheimer and CNS agents are ignored because of their high costs. Can it be inferred from all this, that the time of medicinal chemists as the elite of pharmaceuticals is over? Anyhow, more and more people are unemployed and talented pharmaceutical scientists are being wasted. Thank you for your time.

Bonus article:

http://sciencecareer...aredit.a1100136

 

We are witnessing a tremendous upheaval in addition to growing pains in the biopharmaceutical industry. Unfortunately these companies are run by businessmen who either were never scientists, or who were scientists who never understood science. The off-shoring to China and India will continue until there are no more jobs left to off-shore. Organic chemistry is the hardest hit sector in chemistry, and medicinal chemistry has nearly been obliterated in the U.S. Workers in China and India, especially, receive 33% the salary of U.S. workers, zero benefits, and have no rights under the U.S. Constitution. Hence big business can exploit them to their heart's content.

 

It's no coincidence that we now have the lowest drug approval rating since 1986. Chinese and Indian chemists are good chemists, however they lack the experience of their U.S. counterparts. Most big companies don't engage in any real research these days, and hence they buy up the fruit of biotech when ripe enough.

 

Chemotherapeutics are shifting to biologics, and it's anyone's guess as to how long pharmaceuticals as we know it will continue.

 

I'd say medicinal chemistry is the worst field for a graduating organic chemist to consider. Employment in chemistry will be found in biochemistry and clinical chemistry. Med chem is practically dead. ~ RIP ~