bob007 — very few biotechs in general are profitable. Both working for them and investing in them is like bungee jumping with cracked elastic. Kinda thrilling. I know very few people who have been with the same biotech for more than 3 years.
Invitrogen, Illumina, Stratagene, Biosite. There are profitable biotechs based elsewhere, but with significant or growing operations in SD ie Amgen, Genentech, Genzyme, Biogen Idec.
Biotech in SD was really awful a few years ago — I knew people getting laid off across the board — big pharma, compbio, devices — were merging/leaving. There’s just not many big players left to pull out of town, though I know of two small/mid sized companies that will be laying people off soon 🙁
So, I don’t think biotech is in that bad of a shape in SD. I’ve been on the fence about going back to work (new mom) but since we just moved back to SD (we left after being laid off from a biotech, of course, and are now back in) thought I’d float my CV out there just to see what would happen. The response has been the strongest in my career, plus every job I’ve interviewed for has been a newly created position.
There seems to be a lot of bellyaching about Neurocrine, but it’s a fairly small company sitting on a nice pile of cash to keep afloat while they redo some clinical trials. Most of the people they let go were in sales and not based in SD. The FDA was fine with the lower dosage of their sleep drug and they’ll eventually come around on the higher dose. Now, whether the drug is great enough to be a blockbuster is a matter of debate.
