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. from the ...
