PHDs don’t feel quite prepared to go o straight from academia into industry, here is a half-way point. There are certain science and biotechnology companies work in patnership with academia to create  industrial postdoc positions.

In recent years, postdoctoral opportunities in industry have been on the rise. Notorious for higher pay, access to greater resources, and providing a leg up for future industry positions, these positions offer many advantages over traditional academic postdocs. However, they are not for everyone; certain aspects are cause for caution. Timothy Allsopp heads up the bio-hub Neusentis, a part of Pfizer that delivers ‘new science therapeutics’, with a particular focus on pain, sensory disorders, channelopathies (disorders related to ion channels) and enabling stem cell technologies.

Industrial postdocs are excellent opportunities if your goal is to stay in industry, but depending on the postdoctoral program and company, returning to academia may be difficult. Academic scientists need quality publications during their postdoctoral training, and not every project in an industrial setting may be designed to do that. Xiaomo Jiang is currently doing her postdoc with Novartis, working in the Developmental Molecular Pathways Department, trying to understand the underlying signal mechanisms for specific diseases. For her, a postdoc in industry was a chance to try something new. “I didn’t know anything about industry and I wanted to learn.” She also applied to academic postdocs, and had the luxury of making a choice between those or this one in industry.

Postdoctoral training program is designed to provide a strong research foundation that will lead to tomorrow’s innovative new biological therapies for major human diseases.