Biotech Career

00:00:29.06 I'm Marc Tessier-Lavigne. I'm executive Vice President of Research and Chief Scientific Officer
00:00:35.27 at Genentech, a large biotechnology company in the San Francisco Bay Area
00:00:40.18 which is also a subsidiary of Roche, a Swiss Pharmaceutical company
00:00:46.15 In my capacity as head of research at Genentech, I direct 1400 scientists in disease research
00:00:53.27 and drug discovery in cancer, immune disorders, infectious disease
00:00:58.25 and neurodegenerative disease. In addition I maintain
00:01:02.05 a basic research laboratory of 8 post-doctoral fellows
00:01:05.07 where we focus on understanding basic mechanisms of neural development and neural repair.
00:01:11.26 I moved to Genentech about 7 years ago
00:01:14.17 from Stanford University, so I've lived in both
00:01:17.23 academia and in the private sector, and
00:01:20.13 what I'm going to talk to you about today
00:01:21.29 is about careers in biotechnology and the pharmaceutical industry.
00:01:27.28 Some of you will be undergraduate students or graduate students or postdoctoral fellows
00:01:32.21 who are wondering if you are interested in a career in academia, or possibly
00:01:37.01 a career in biotechnology or in the pharma industry
00:01:40.25 and I'd like to tell you a little bit about my own journey
00:01:44.16 my thoughts about being in the industry, in the hopes it might be helpful to you in your decision making.
00:01:50.22 So before I do that, what I'd like to do is to start by telling you
00:01:55.15 why I'm so excited to be involved in disease research, translational medicine and drug discovery
00:02:01.28 And the reason is, because it's truly today, the golden age of drug discovery
00:02:07.16 over the past two decades, advances in our understanding of basic biological mechanisms
00:02:13.06 have just exploded, and this of course has resulted from the development of powerful new technology
00:02:18.20 the sequencing of the human genome, the ability to make representative mouse models of disease
00:02:24.26 the creative use of model organisms, advances in human genetics,
00:02:30.18 all of that means that today, we can tackle disease biology with the same rigor and depth with which we, as basic biologists
00:02:40.03 like to tackle basic biological problems, in fact
00:02:43.01 many of the most exciting questions in biology today, are questions related to disease biology
00:02:50.06 and I'd like to illustrate that just by saying a few words about each of the therapeutic areas in which we in our company
00:02:55.18 endeavor. So the first and foremost is cancer,
00:02:59.27 we have a very big effort in cancer, because our knowledge
00:03:03.14 of cancer mechanism has really exploded enormously over the past two decades
00:03:09.06 the identification of key oncogenes, of tumor suppressor factors
00:03:15.24 and also environmental factors that contribute to tumor development and progression
00:03:20.13 and based on that increase in basic knowledge, it's been possible in a systematic
00:03:25.28 and rational way to develop therapeutics targeting these mechanisms
00:03:29.10 and there are today over 600 experimental medicines in the clinic targeting cancer
00:03:36.19 based on this explosion of new knowledge.
00:03:38.22 This is coming none to soon, although there have been serious advances
00:03:42.15 in the past two decades in the development of cancer therapies
00:03:45.04 it's still the case that mortality rates
00:03:47.09 from cancer haven't improved very much at all in the past 50 years.
00:03:51.18 So although there has been a lot of progress, there has been a long way to go
00:03:55.08 but the good news is that the new knowledge is fueling new drug discovery
00:03:59.25 which I believe will transform the face of cancer therapy.
00:04:04.10 Some of the most exciting questions in basic biology
00:04:07.22 are coming back from the clinic as we discover for example patients that do respond and those that don't respond
00:04:13.05 to various therapeutics targeting particular genes
00:04:16.05 and the question arising, what are the resistance mechanisms,
00:04:19.16 how does the tumor evade the drug and so forth.
00:04:23.20 So we see knowledge fueling the development of drugs, and then
00:04:27.26 new knowledge coming back from the clinic to the bench.
00:04:30.21 The second area we work in is immune disorders and here just very briefly
00:04:35.00 there has been, again, an explosion of new knowledge
00:04:38.15 it started later than our knowledge of cancer so it's really only now making its way into the clinic
00:04:43.16 and again, none too soon. There are many auto-immune disorders
00:04:46.27 where treatments are still very poor. Lupus for example
00:04:50.16 there hasn't been a new medicine in 30 years
00:04:53.02 but there are now molecules in the clinic that are showing some encouraging signs
00:04:57.10 of activity. Infectious disease is and will remain
00:05:01.06 a chronic problem with us, every time we
00:05:03.01 develop a new therapy, therapeutic, a new drug, a new antibiotic
00:05:08.03 for a particular pathogen, it will evolve resistance
00:05:11.12 so drug resistance and the evolution of new parasites also will continue to challenge us
00:05:16.16 for decades, centuries to come. But the good news there, again, is that
00:05:22.06 with the sequencing of the genomes of pathogenic microorganisms
00:05:25.14 we now have the material, the substrate for discovering appropriate targets
00:05:30.28 to develop the next wave of antibiotics and medicines.
00:05:36.13 Then finally, let me just say a few words about neurodegeneration
00:05:40.02 and let's just focus on Alzheimer's disease, which is really the largest neurodegenerative disease.
00:05:46.10 The human toll is incredible, in the United States alone, there are 5 million people
00:05:51.01 with Alzheimer's disease, which slowly robs them of their personality.
00:05:54.23 It affects not just them but their spouses, their children, their families, caretakers...
00:05:59.00 Economically the impact is enormous, it is estimated to be about
00:06:03.27 180 billion dollars, again just in the United States,
00:06:07.19 and this is just for things like nursing care, palliative treatments,
00:06:12.06 there are no disease modifying medicines available
00:06:14.13 it is estimated that by 2050, in the United States there will be
00:06:18.19 50 million people with Alzheimer's disease, and many times that worldwide
00:06:25.23 and again, just in the United States, the cost of care is expected to reach about a trillion dollars
00:06:32.24 and just to give you a comparison, the gross domestic product of the United States
00:06:36.29 is about 14 trillion dollars right now, so a huge, huge, human impact
00:06:43.07 and a huge economic impact, and no disease modifying medicine.
00:06:46.20 So a huge unmet need, at the same time, again the good news is that,
00:06:50.22 our knowledge of what happens, what goes wrong in Alzheimer's disease
00:06:54.02 has been advancing, galloping, in the past several years, and I think
00:06:58.00 we can be guardedly optimistic that the new knowledge, the new knowledge
00:07:01.13 that will emerge in coming years, will provide us with the basis to make therapeutics
00:07:05.07 that will make a difference. So, those are the kinds of things
00:07:09.12 that have driven me to a career in biomedical research
00:07:14.11 and to take the steps to go into the biotechnology industry
00:07:20.02 and if you find this exciting, and it is an exciting time
00:07:24.07 both from the point of view of making therapies
00:07:27.05 and medicines that can help patients, and also from the
00:07:31.16 point of view of understanding the basic mechanisms
00:07:34.02 that are at play. Then perhaps you will be interested in considering a career in the industry.
00:07:41.06 Now, for myself in thinking about going to industry, there were a few things that were key,
00:07:46.25 First that I really became interested in becoming more directly involved
00:07:51.11 in the development of medicines. I think there can be nothing more
00:07:54.24 satisfying than to feel that you made a big impact on developing a therapeutic
00:07:58.13 that can help people directly. At the same time,
00:08:01.24 I didn't want to compromise my science in any way,
00:08:04.23 but the good news is there are many companies for which the science
00:08:07.00 is as rigorous as any science in any top research institution in the world.
00:08:13.15 This isn't true across the board, you have to do your diligence
00:08:16.02 and I encourage you to really figure out whether the companies
00:08:19.15 you might be interested in are doing science at the level that you believe is the science that you want to be doing yourself.
00:08:25.14 I decided to go into industry after about twelve years in academia
00:08:31.08 first on the faculty at the University of California, San Francisco, and then at Stanford University.
00:08:37.09 I hadn't really planned on it, but over time as I continued to do
00:08:41.04 basic research, my research has focused and continues to focus on mechanisms
00:08:45.22 of brain wiring, how neurons make connections with other neurons
00:08:50.20 to form the neural circuits that underlie the functioning of the brain.
00:08:53.20 As we continued that work, I became more and more interested
00:08:56.15 in the re-wiring of the nervous system after injury,
00:09:00.13 for example as occurs in spinal cord injury and paralysis
00:09:04.05 and also the problem of neurodegeneration,
00:09:06.18 two topics that obviously have more direct clinical application.
00:09:10.09 I got some exposure to the industry through involvement
00:09:14.07 as many academics do with some start-up companies here in the Bay Area
00:09:18.23 and so when Genentech approached me in 2003, I was primed
00:09:22.27 and excited to join the company to take on a senior role in research management,
00:09:27.27 while at the same time maintaining my research laboratory.
00:09:31.14 Now, if you are thinking about the possibility of going to the industry
00:09:38.16 I think there are a few things that you will want to consider, and the first is
00:09:42.24 to recognize that being in a company is really being a part of a collective enterprise
00:09:48.08 we're a team, there is nothing more exhilarating to me, or fulfilling,
00:09:52.17 than being a part of a team I work every week with other scientists
00:09:56.08 who are terrific, but also with people who I wouldn't encounter in academia,
00:09:59.19 experts in clinical development and
00:10:01.08 regulatory affairs in drug development and formulation
00:10:04.19 and it is incredibly fulfilling at least to me to be able to have these deep and continual interactions
00:10:12.21 with these professional colleagues as we move towards developing new therapeutics.
00:10:18.22 At the same time you are part of a team, and you have to be willing to be part of a team.
00:10:22.09 So I think the first thing you have to ask yourself is if this is something that excites you or not
00:10:25.24 and if it is, then this is definitely something that is worth considering.
00:10:31.00 Related to this, if you are in academia, you can really set your own direction,
00:10:37.27 there are some constraints, you have to be able to get funding,
00:10:40.26 convince the funding agencies to fund the research that you are interested in
00:10:45.14 and that can be challenging too, but in general
00:10:48.07 it is possible to follow the path that interests you to follow your nose.
00:10:52.12 In industry, of course you are part of a team,
00:10:54.09 and you have to be willing to go where it makes sense for the team to go.
00:10:57.24 Now there are some companies where which all work is teamwork,
00:11:00.25 and so there you have to feel that you believe in the company and that you believe in the mission00:11:06.02 and that you are excited to pursue the directions
00:11:08.22 that the company has decided to embrace and which you can help shape.
00:11:12.02 There are some companies that have more of a hybrid model, Genentech is one of them, where
00:11:15.25 all of us have a pipeline project, where we focus on
00:11:20.26 things that we need to advance the pipeline of the company
00:11:24.17 but discretionary time is also made available to scientists,
00:11:28.03 perhaps about a quarter of their time, where with post-doctoral fellows
00:11:32.07 they can do basic research on any topic of interest.
00:11:34.29 I continue with my post-docs to investigate mechanisms
00:11:37.10 of basic wiring of the nervous system, as well as neural repair and degeneration.
00:11:45.17 So depending on your temperament you may be more interested
00:11:48.11 in a company where you focus just on the team aspect
00:11:51.11 you may be more interested in a company that is more hybrid,
00:11:54.19 and they each have their pros and cons.
00:11:56.22 Some people don't want to have two hats, they really want to focus on one thing.
00:12:00.15 Some people enjoy having two hats, you really have to decide what you want to do yourself.
00:12:05.16 A third consideration as you think about the possibility
00:12:11.25 of going into the industry is are you more interested
00:12:15.00 in a big company, like Genentech, or a small company, a start-up company
00:12:18.28 and each has their pros and cons, the big company
00:12:22.07 will tend to be more stable, the small company will tend to be much riskier, and
00:12:27.13 it is a little bit, as they say about the two kinds of people,
00:12:32.00 there are some people who are on the playground like the merry-go-round,
00:12:37.13 which goes around uniformly all the time,
00:12:39.28 and there are some people who like the rollercoaster with all its ups-and-downs
00:12:42.24 and I'd say the big company is more like the merry-go-round
00:12:45.03 and the small company is more like the rollercoaster.
00:12:47.01 You have to decide which is better for you.
00:12:49.27 Now in the small company, you will be able, probably,
00:12:53.27 get exposure to many more aspects of the company
00:12:56.21 be involved not just in your own project, but in, as a scientist say,
00:13:02.03 but also in business development, perhaps in some aspects of clinical development and so forth.
00:13:06.14 Whereas in a big company, your role may be more defined, so there are pros and cons of each
00:13:11.26 of these, and again, you have to ask yourself what's best for me
00:13:14.11 and again, your opinion may change over time.
00:13:16.20 You may be more interested in one at one stage of your career and one at another stage.
00:13:20.24 A last consideration to think about is if you think this is exciting, but you are undecided
00:13:28.05 and you think you might be interested in going back and forth between academia and industry.
00:13:33.02 Which I strongly encourage you to consider, that's more and more of a trend nowadays.
00:13:37.13 Then one thing you should consider is that it is easy to make the
00:13:42.26 transition from academia to industry, to make the transition back from industry to academia
00:13:47.29 that works best if you come from a company where publication is possible and encouraged
00:13:53.27 so you can continue to publish science, which can then be,
00:13:57.05 it's the metric that academic institutions use when they are evaluating you
00:14:00.29 it's not impossible if you don't publish to come back to academia,
00:14:03.14 I know plenty of examples of successful people
00:14:05.25 in industry who were at companies that didn't publish
00:14:08.04 who then went back to academia with very exciting opportunities
00:14:13.09 but I think it facilitates it if you can continue to publish,
00:14:16.11 so if you think it is something you might want
00:14:18.25 to explore, then you might want to think about whether
00:14:21.07 that is something that is part of the company culture that you are considering
00:14:24.10 Again, at Genentech, that is very much part of our culture.
00:14:26.25 In closing, I just would like to say that, if you decide that this is the right thing for you00:14:33.10 then I can assure you that you will find it a most fulfilling prospect.
00:14:37.24 For all the reasons I have already told you, but I'd just like to close by
00:14:43.01 mentioning another reason, which I alluded to earlier, but I really want to reinforce
00:14:46.10 which is the sense that you are doing something very tangible
00:14:49.16 very directly for patients. I think there is nothing more fulfilling
00:14:54.00 than to be part of a team that puts together
00:14:57.17 a medicine that then goes out and helps thousands upon thousands of patients.
00:15:01.22 We regularly at Genentech have grateful patients come back
00:15:05.07 talk about their experiences, and I'd like to close, if you don't mind
00:15:08.24 with a quote from the wife of one of our patients,
00:15:12.11 who has benefited from one of our cancer medicines.
00:15:14.19 She and her husband came to visit us just a few weeks ago
00:15:18.09 and these are her words, in closing, when she spoke to us.
00:15:23.17 What she said is, "We want to extend a huge thank you to all of you
00:15:28.16 keep working hard, by changing lives you have also influenced
00:15:32.18 and inspired many lives, this is what
00:15:35.15 you were meant to do." If you think what you were meant to do
00:15:40.13 was to apply the best science possible, the best insights from biology
00:15:45.04 to developing therapies, and cures, for patients with unmet medical needs,
00:15:51.18 then I strongly encourage you to consider a career in the industry.
00:15:56.12 Thank you very much.

This Talk

Speaker: Marc Tessier-Lavigne

Recorded: August 2010

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Talk Overview

Dr. Tessier-Lavigne describes his own journey from academics to biotechnology and explains why it is exciting to be working in biotech at this moment in time. He presents points for consideration in choosing between academics and industry, or a small start-up and a larger, established company. This lecture may leave you thinking that a post-doc or career in biotech might be a good fit for you.

Speaker Bio

Marc Tessier-Lavigne

Dr. Tessier-Lavigne is Executive Vice-President of Research and Chief Scientific Officer at Genentech where he is responsible for directing all basic and disease research and drug discovery efforts. He also maintains his own research group focused on the wiring of the developing brain, as well as neuronal re-wiring after injury and the process of neurodegeneration. Continue Reading