The face of pharmaceutical researchers is changing. An increase in the diversity and number of foreign-born researchers working at private firms mirrors the increase in foreign graduate students and postdocs currently in the proverbial pipeline of scientists. According to a National Academy of Sciences report,1 nearly half of the approximately 52,000 postdocs in the United States are foreign-born, with half remaining in this country for work, including research and management positions at pharmaceutical firms.
These demographics have had an obvious effect on company personnel profiles. Although foreign-born scientists are by no means a new phenomenon, those investigators who have been in the United States for the majority of their career do note change. "I'm overwhelmed now as I walk around the corridors," says Jasjit Bindra, director of special projects in clinical research at Pfizer Central Research in Groton, Conn. Bindra, an organic chemist by training, received his Ph.D....