Tag: Life Sciences
The Perils and Promise of 3D Printing: Are DIY Life Sciences in Your Future?
With news that 3D printing (without question one of the coolest technologies to come down the road in quite some time) can be used to produce guns, we must now ask ourselves what other things might be built using a 3D printer. What about, say, a medical device? Or human tissue? Or body parts?
Some folks are batting around billion dollar numbers, imagining that the official market for these breakthroughs will be the big story in the years to come. And, to be sure, that “official” marketplace will be an important element in the new world of bio-mechanical printing. But as an IP lawyer, my first thought was this is going to be crazy.
So what is 3D printing, and why is it such a big deal? 3D printing is, as you might imagine from the name, a technology that permits three-dimensional … Read More »
2013 Life Sciences Employment Outlook: What Does It Mean for HR Compliance?
On January 30, 2013, BioSpace.com, an online life sciences recruitment company, released BioSpace Annual Report: Life Sciences Employment Outlook. The report is based on a site demographic study, review of industry job openings from 2010-2012 and salary data collected by BioSpace. The report is cautiously optimistic about employment security/opportunity in the life sciences industry. BioSpace reports that unemployment is down 3.4% since 2010, and average salaries are inching back up from the low point in 2010 towards the high level mark recorded in 2008. Employees with a doctorate or MD degree have the highest spike in average salary growth since 2010.
California, NJ/NY and Massachusetts remain as the top 3 hiring locations in 2012. The study notes that large companies are continuing to explore outsourcing jobs in process, manufacturing and production to overseas locations in India, China and South Korea. As … Read More »
Affliction and Social Media
Tasteless comments about the growth of social communication often fall back on the hackneyed metaphor of “spreading like a cancer.” The growth is uncontrolled, we are told, metastasizing in unexpected locations with ruthless speed. The body politic, we are told, is being rotted within by mutation. The traditions of the past are under siege, and we require radical surgery for a cure.
The panic is unwarranted, but the metaphor may be more apropos than we realize.
The astonishing (and Pulitzer Prize–winning) The Emperor of All Maladies describes the halting progress made in the fight against cancer since it was first identified by the Egyptian physician Imhotep 4500 years ago. For most of that grim history, cancer has been misunderstood, misidentified, and a hopeless diagnosis for its victims. Research was driven by a small number of obsessed, charismatic individuals, many of whom were … Read More »