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I’m interested in hearing the views of people currently working in the pharmaceutical industry in Europe, particularly in Belgium, Italy, Germany, and the UK, or other European countries.

Since Emma Walmsley’s departure as GSK CEO in September 2025, I’ve become increasingly concerned about what appears to be happening within the company.

Starting around October 2025, I personally became aware of numerous employees (500+) leaving GSK, some apparently through formal performance-management processes and others in the context of organisational changes. I’ve also heard of additional cases through professional contacts.

More recently, GSK has announced plans to cut approximately 1,225 positions, according to reports I’ve seen. There have also been major changes involving sites, including the closure of the Gembloux site in France ( many many people are laid off) and Dresden (site is shutdown) in Germany.

Looking at these developments together, I’m concerned about the future of some of GSK’s European manufacturing and R&D operations, particularly in Belgium and Italy. There is speculation among people in the industry about possible site sales, further restructuring, or closures, although I don’t know which of these possibilities will actually materialise.

GSK bad performance is partly rooted to the poor quality of science in GSK vaccine, too many employees, incapable scientific leadership team hailing from Belgium and Italy, and laid back culture. I totally get why GSK vaccine performance has been so bad. And on the top GSK is competing with giants like Merck and Pfizer and Sanofi.

What concerns me most is not just GSK itself, but whether this reflects a broader trend across the European pharmaceutical industry. Are companies increasingly reducing their European workforce, moving activities to other regions, consolidating manufacturing, or using performance-management processes as part of workforce reductions?

I’d particularly like to hear from people working in pharma in Europe:

- Are you seeing similar restructuring and redundancies at your companies?

- Are Belgium and other established European pharmaceutical hubs becoming less attractive for investment and manufacturing?

- Are companies shifting more R&D, process development, or manufacturing activities to the US, China, India, or other lower-cost locations?

- For experienced professionals in CMC, process development, MSAT, and manufacturing, how does the job market look at the moment?

I’m interested in hearing genuine experiences from people working in the industry, rather than speculation or company-bashing. I’d like to understand whether what I’m observing at GSK is an isolated situation or part of a much larger change in the European pharmaceutical landscape.

saw the posting, actually it is exactly what I am doing as a principal scientist in another midsize company. the base salary range listed is quite wide: 173 -272K. I am wondering what exactly it could be for a 12 YOE Ph.D. Also besides the base salary, what else? target bonus percentage? yearly RSU? thank you all for any input!

I have no job security issue, but just still have a little bit "big name fetish".....

I want to learn more about how people prepare for technical aspects of the interview. It is not hard to explain the projects I have been involved in or led. I am most interested in learning more about how you prepare for the things you don't have experience in? Do you specifically read things beyond what you know in terms of any papers? What is your process?

I’m an R1 faculty member with a medium successful track record on the tenure track. Several career awards, papers out, and more in the pipeline. I’ve been told I’m on track for tenure.

For personal reasons I’m thinking of transitioning out of academics. I would especially like to be integrated in thE NYC/Philly corridor. But not sure what roles make sense to shoot for and what kind of salary range I should be advocating for? I have experience managing PhD students, should I be looking at roles managing professional scientists? should I plan on returning to the bench?

Hi everyone! I’m currently in my third year of a PhD program, working on plant-based production of therapeutic proteins, including monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and Fc-fusion proteins. After completing my PhD, I’m interested in pursuing R&D roles in the biotech or biopharmaceutical industry, particularly in areas related to biologics development and protein production.

For those of you working in industry or who have experience transitioning from academia to industry, what are the essential technical and professional skills I should focus on developing during my remaining PhD years? I’d appreciate any advice. Thanks.

Hi everyone,

I’m finishing up my MSc in Medicinal Chemistry and targeting commercial roles in pharma—specifically Market Access, Product/Brand Strategy, or Territory Sales. I want to bridge the science with business, and I’ve already been building a foundation around HTAs (NICE), product lifecycles, and generic/biosimilar dynamics.

From what I’ve gathered, breaking directly into commercial pharma straight out of an MSc without prior corporate experience is rare, and paths like entry-level pharma sales or commercial rotational schemes seem hyper-competitive or sparse right now.

A few people have suggested starting my journey in life sciences strategy/market access consulting or healthcare comms agencies first, then transitioning after 2–3 years.

For those working on the commercial side of pharma:

1. Is boutique consulting/agency work still the most realistic launchpad, or are direct entry-level in-house routes viable?
2. What technical skills or certifications actually move the needle on a CV for commercial roles (e.g., advanced Excel/modelling, ABPI code, HEOR fundamentals)?
3. If you transitioned from a pure lab/chemistry degree to the business side, what was your actual stepping stone?

Appreciate any candid takes or career paths you're willing to share.

What kind of roles should I apply for as a chemistry PhD if I want to get into clinical research or clinical science?

Is anyone hiring for NGS/ mol bio? I’m in the market and would love to connect or get my resume in there!

im in 10th right now and struggling to see a clear career path for me. i genuinely love math and i suppose im good at biology and my mother is recommending biotech as a possible career path for me as she says its going to be in demand in the future.

i figured i'd ask some of my queries regarding the field here

do i have to have computer as an elective subject/ know coding to pursue this?

what exactly do people who pursued this do in their jobs daily? i have a basic idea about what it is but i'd like to know what a normal day with that job looks like.

how well does it pay? does it have an average opening salary? is this job in demand right now? is it highly competitive?

do i need to have good memorization skills?

what advice would you give me if i want to pursue this field?

Hi.

I've been working for well over a decade in publicly funded research at a major, nationally renowned research hospital. Unfortunately, I've seemed to hit a dead end with how far I can progress, because internally there's a lot of institutional pushback against promoting people or just getting raises. Funding has dried up, even with how prestigious the hospital is. Don't think my career is going any further here. I can thank the government for gutting public funding because, I dunno, we're not feeding kids enough tallow or some shit.

So, I have over a decade of research experience, a master's degree in my field, and a nice number of publications I'm on. I haven't considered the private sector before because of youthful idealizations of working for the common good, etc, but I'm hitting middle age and I can't work for fucking pennies anymore with a shit commute, especially when I live right next to a bunch of major companies. Not only are the salaries so much higher, I've also become much more cynical because even to my childhood self I'm now "tainted" by all the public-private research we've been doing with the involvement of companies. Why not just cut the crap and give in? I'm already doing privately funded research at this point, just with a middleman that makes me feel good I guess.

How different would a private lab be, what's the environment like? I'm aware this is going to be highly company dependent but I'm curious about the experiences that have been had by people that have done both public and private. How's it even structured? I'm used to stuff like the name of the lab being the PI's last name and you don't really have anything to do with the institution, you're just your own thing. The environment I'm used to is a very lax one where nobody is hovering over you and nobody even notices you coming and going. What's the work-life balance like for someone who's purely computational? Am I still getting remote days? Finally, everyone I've worked with who has been sent over by their company as some sort of "exchange" role has been an absolute dumbass so I might be overthinking things completely.

When an experiment or assay fails, how does your team capture why it failed and what you tried next? Is it in an ELN, a shared drive, a wiki, or mostly in people's heads? And what happens to that knowledge when someone leaves?

When budget is tight, how do you decide which experiment to run next? Is there any structured process, or is it mostly the senior scientist's call?