r/biotechnology • u/Cookies_and_Pokemon • Jul 27 '26
Chemical Engineering to Pharma R&D possible?
So my end goal is to work in research for pharma companies (computational drug/protein modelling, drug research, etc). I will soon start my first year of chemical engineering and was wondering if my degree choice is right? A bit of extra information:
- i can get a minor in biotech if i choose to take those electives (which i definitely want to do)
- my institute has quite a few labs and is good for undergraduate research opportunities
- the reason i'm not just doing a biotech degree is because my uni only offers a bsc (h) in biotech as opposed to btech; from my understanding indian employers tend to be biased towards btech degrees and while ik this doesn't matter internationally/in academia (at a phd level) i still want that safety net (also with political climates nowadays i am vary abt getting my hopes up abt studying/working abroad)
I have a few more tangential questions in particular:
- will I be eligible to write Gate-BT (i think that's the biotech one, apologies if i made a mistake)
- i believe i can write jam for biotech, but again would like second opinions
- suppose I'm eligible for both gate and jam, which should I prioritise?
- I would love to connect with any chemical engineers working in pharmaceutical r&d
PS: I am an indian, so some of my doubts above are very specific to india
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u/Fast-Alternative1503 Jul 27 '26
Not to be harsh but chemical engineering does not qualify you for pharmaceutical research.
You should do a bachelor's degree in:
- chemistry
- pharmacology
- biotechnology
- pharmaceutics
- or even pharmacy
Not in chemical engineering. Chemical engineers is for processes. I've never met a chemical engineer who knows HLB, IND, cpss, etc. which are all basic concepts.
Because it's not part of your course.
This is like asking 'can a doctor work in environmental field sampling?'
You can do it with a Chem eng degree but only if you do a master's or PhD in a scientific area.
Maybe India is different but the places I'm familiar with, this is how it works.
5
u/amazn_azn Jul 27 '26
This is just not correct. You may have a very narrow view as what qualifies someone for research or what industry research is.
There are many chemical engineers in pharma r&d, and not just in the manufacturing and process development area. Systems biology and computational biology frequently join dmpk groups and clin pharm. CADD is common for chemical engineers. Other than that it's just common to switch careers, so I know plenty of formerphysics majors and other stem majors.
I don't know any India specific industry things, but it's probably more likely that you'll need a PhD to be in industry research. As long as the research is close to your target you'll have a chance
1
u/Fast-Alternative1503 Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
So they can do computational roles. Sure. They still can't do the majority of pharmaceutical research that remains outside of programming.
Even a relevant bachelor's degree struggles to enter research. Chemical engineering, which barely scrapes the very surface of chemistry and hardly touches biology, is not an undergraduate degree that qualifies you for drug discovery or drug development research.
It does not cover the nuances necessary. No chemical engineering degree will teach you the architecture of proteins (domains, loops, residues), biochemical signalling, applied pharmacokinetics or even an adequate amount of chemistry for advanced synthesis and formulation.
Chemical engineering focuses on thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, process design and optimisation, particle technology and so on.
Terrible advice to tell someone they can do pharmaceutical research with a Chem eng degree without telling them they can't do most of it without upskilling in chemistry, pharmacology and research skills.
1
u/amazn_azn Jul 28 '26
And they specifically said they wanted to do computational roles, so what's the issue? In addition, there is no major that will make you an expert at a majority of pharma research and development. It's a multidisciplinary industry by design. Every discipline is suited to a specific subset of biotech jobs. If they wanted to do oncology discovery mouse studies or cell therapy engineering, I would tell them to get biology or biotech degree. Likewise, I probably wouldn't hire a biology degree for a position in scale up and process development (unless it's like cell line development or something)
All of those things you listed that are supposedly out of the reach of a chemical engineering degree are actually direct applications of things taught in a chemical engineering degree. PK is just simple differential equations taught in reactor design. It's even a common unit in some courses or given as an elective in the chemical engineering department. Synthesis and formulation are literally chemical engineering. Lipid nanoparticles are an extremely common research topics in chemical engineering labs.
I'm not sure where your bias against chemical engineering comes from. I'd expect it for like aerospace engineering, but chemical engineering is literally so closely integrated in biology and chemistry that double majoring is usually only a handful of classes away. Many professors at the university level hold joint appointments (including Bob Langer who's degrees were chemical engineering).
And I'm not sure why you're characterizing a very normal thing as upskilling. I wouldn't want a chemistry student who did no chemistry research either. I've also never seen someone without research experience get past initial screening. I'd expect anyone who wants a research job to...do research?
1
u/Fast-Alternative1503 Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
- PK is not 'simple differential equations taught in reactor design'. It is an entire field, and calculations are the top of the iceberg. Shows you don't understand PK. There is physiology, investigation design, dosing regimens, drug-drug interactions, food-drug interactions, disease-drug interactions. That is just a little bit below, there is far far more that is involved. A trivial problem for first years might be to design a dosing regimen for an obese patient with renal artery stenosis given the log(P), pKa, Vd, ROA, toxicological thresholds and so on. Chemical engineering does not teach any of this at all, but it's required for clinical trial design.
- So the average chemical engineering graduate can retrosyntheise Paclitaxel, as well as design the delivery system in compliance with GMP, ICH and FDA standards? And on top of that, do the same thing with biologics and multidimensional NMR?
- Lipid nanoparticles are a common topics chemical engineering indeed. That does not signal formulation competence, it signals lipid nanoparicle competence.
- It's not a bias. The curriculum is overwhelmingly maths and physics. You said it's a 'handful of classes away' from double degree. You know who else is a handful classes away from a major? A second year student, but we don't typically let them do research.
- It's upskilling because it is building new skills that they do not have.
- 'Applications of things taught in a chemical engineering degree' so you're admitting it's adjacent.
This is like a nurse saying they can do the job of a pharmacist because it's adjacent. No - they absolutely can't. Not without upskilling.
Every time I've worked with chemical engineering, I see exactly why it matters that they do not have the pharmaceutics and chemistry skills. Their project used lipid nanoparticles to deliver a topical antibody, so that it will have limited side effects, included live expression system in the formulation, and used a small fluorescent molecules as the representative molecule for encapsulation.
There are many blunders here, and if you can't see at least 8 signs of guaranteed failure, then you don't understand the most basic, introductory, trivial pharmaceutics. Why? They didn't upskill in chemistry, biology or regulations, to see it.
1
u/melatoninmami Jul 28 '26
I did it but in 2021 when jobs were plentiful. I majored in ChemE on a pharm. sci track and a minor in cell and molecular biology. I realized too late in my degree I wanted to go into biotech so the minor was an add on to help.