From Academia to Industry: What No One Tells You About Drug Development

For many scientists who make the leap from academia to industry, there's a reality that dawns on them relatively quickly. Graduate school prepares scientists to ask important questions: How does this pathway work? What causes this disease? Could this molecule become a new therapy?

What it rarely teaches is how discoveries become medicines. 

The reality is that once a promising idea leaves the laboratory, it enters a world of business strategy, regulatory planning, multidisciplinary teams and years of coordinated development. They must all work together through an extended, multi-year process to transform drug discoveries into therapies that can actually reach patients.

"What surprised me most was how all the different pieces of an organization fit together," said Richard Myers, PhD, a pharmacology consultant and instructor in the new Preclinical Drug Discovery Immersive program offered by UC San Diego’s Division of Extended Studies.

"The science is only one piece of a much bigger picture, and it becomes important to understand how your work contributes to moving the whole program forward," he added. 

That gap between scientific training and the realities of how a drug is actually made is exactly what the Preclinical Drug Discovery Immersive program aims to address. The five-day, in-person course is designed specifically to give graduate students, postdocs and early-career scientists the expanded perspective—and potential career opportunities—that many previous professionals had to learn on their own. 


Richard Myers, PhD

Making the Transition From Academia to the Pharmaceutical Industry

Many scientists enter industry knowing they'll do research and are at least vaguely aware of the larger ecosystem they'll be working in. Yet the implications of the shift can still be surprising. 

"The scientific aspects remain the same," recalled Dahea You, PharmD, PhD, DABT, a senior principal scientist at Johnson & Johnson and instructor in the Preclinical Drug Discovery Immersive.

"What surprised me was the scale of everything surrounding the science," she added. "There are a lot of people and functions involved in moving a drug forward."

It's a lesson echoed by Kristen Taylor Meadows, PhD, founder of KRTM Consulting Services and also an instructor in the Preclinical Drug Discovery Immersive program. 

"It can be a bit of a crash landing," she said. "We're all trained as scientists. We know how to do good science. But it's also everything else that goes into it that is important for people new to the industry to understand."

This broader perspective often represents the biggest learning curve for new scientists in industry. Understanding how your work fits into the larger development process not only becomes an expectation in industry but also creates new opportunities for charting a career. 

"It took a lot of time to understand the way the organization was structured," added Myers. "There are sites spread all over the world. I had to learn how they interacted, where our site fit into the overall process, what our deliverables were and how our performance was evaluated. It was really interesting to learn, but a lot to take in at that point in my career too."


Dahea You, PharmD, PhD, DABT

Understanding the Preclinical Drug Discovery Process

The size and scope of the drug development ecosystem are truly immense. In addition to scientists, there is a diverse array of administrators, experts and other collaborators needed to see a discovery through. 

A young scientist may spend years becoming an expert in molecular biology without ever interacting with a patent attorney, manufacturing engineer or regulatory specialist. Yet in industry, each becomes an essential collaborator in moving a discovery toward patients.

The extra challenge is that none of these additional functions works in isolation. Each one depends on the others to move a medicine forward.

"We often talk about drug discovery as a team sport," said Meadows. "There are so many people, so many different areas of expertise that you need, and all of those have to work together in order to advance a program from start to finish. A failure in one area can affect the whole process."

Understanding this interconnectedness requires scientists to change how they view their own work, too. It's no longer just "did the experiment work?" It becomes: Did I collect enough of the right data? Will the next team have what they need from this work? What needs to be communicated to leadership about these results? What does this information suggest about funding and viability?

For You, one of the biggest surprises was just how much coordination was required every step of the way. "The teamwork, communication skills and project management were all very important," she said. "I found one of the most helpful things was to stay in communication with the team before me to ensure they were collecting the data I needed and also with the team after me in the process to make sure I was going to be delivering what they needed from me too.”

Myers also remarked on the larger process aspect of the new work he was doing.

"My job wasn't simply to generate good science anymore," said Myers about his early industry experience. "The new priority was to build the preclinical package that would support an Investigational New Drug application and move a program toward clinical trials. It was a big shift with a lot of implications."


Kristen Taylor Meadows, PhD

How Scientists Learn to Think Like Drug Developers

While industry certainly values discovery, it also requires scientists to think strategically about where that discovery fits within the larger development pathway.

For Meadows, this means encouraging researchers to think differently about how experiments are designed from the very beginning.

"You may not know exactly how you'll use a data set today," she said. "But is this something that will be needed down the road? Can it identify a concern before it becomes a problem? Or help advance the program later?"

That extra due diligence towards recording work or collecting additional data might seem unnecessary today, but could save millions of dollars and years of work further down the road. 

"It's a very long and expensive process," said Meadows. "The more you do to plan ahead and understand what's important in the next stages, the better."

Why Cross-Functional Collaboration Matters in Drug Development

While the sheer diversity of expertise surrounding every project can seem overwhelming at first, it can also be a source of new intrigue and enjoyment throughout the drug development process. 

For Meadows, that diversity has become one of the most rewarding aspects of her career.

"I find learning from all of these different perspectives really enjoyable," she said. "When I was a graduate student and postdoc, I worked with all immunologists like me. We all did the same thing. But my industry work had me collaborating with so many other experts, and I found their contributions to be really valuable."

Meadows shared that she has routinely collaborated with experts in formulation, regulatory science, clinical development and manufacturing. These are professionals who spend their careers solving problems she had rarely considered during graduate school.

"We're all bringing our piece of the puzzle," said Meadows. "When you put all of those pieces together, that's when you have great success."

For Myers, seeing the larger picture opened new opportunities for leadership and career growth. 

"When you're leading projects, you don't necessarily need to know every little aspect of everything," he said. "But you do need to understand how those pieces fit together and drive the bigger picture. So in that regard, taking the time to be interested and learn about the bigger picture can be a really interesting and rewarding career move."

Career Growth and Opportunities in Biotechnology and Pharma

A broader understanding of the entire drug development process also helps researchers navigate careers that may be more dynamic than they initially realized.

Even within her specialty of toxicology, You discovered multiple career trajectories, each emphasizing different skills and responsibilities. She regularly encourages students to begin exploring their own career possibilities early.

"I've seen a lot of colleagues come into one position and then move to other departments or even outside of toxicology," she said. "Companies are often very supportive of those career transitions because bringing one area of expertise to another part of the process can be incredibly valuable."

That flexibility regarding the roles played and the career paths available is one reason the program's instructors believe exposure to the broader drug development ecosystem can benefit scientists at every stage of their careers—not just those seeking their first industry position.

How Scientific Research Becomes a New Medicine

Although the fields of academia and industry can feel very different, in truth, they are deeply interconnected.

"I think there's a misconception that if you work in academia, you're not going to make the same impact you would in industry," said You. "Yet so many of the most important ideas come from collaborations between industry and academic institutions."

Industry builds on foundational discoveries in academia to develop tomorrow’s medicines. Industry has the expertise to integrate scientific research with engineering, manufacturing, clinical trials, regulatory expertise and commercial strategy to translate promising ideas into therapies.

Ultimately, this underscores UC San Diego Extended Studies’ goal of building bridges between the university and industry to develop an empowered workforce. The division’s Preclinical Drug Discovery Immersive helps to accelerate the process in this industry by revealing the hidden curriculum of drug development to the graduate students, postdocs and early-career scientists who will be leading future innovations. 

Because in today's biotechnology industry, becoming an outstanding scientist is only the beginning.

The greater challenge—and the greater opportunity—is learning how great science becomes a medicine that changes lives.

To learn more about the 5-day immersive course, including registration, instructors and topics covered, visit the Preclinical Drug Discovery Immersive page.