Pharmaceutical Product Development Reviews

Pros

PPD takes many people right out of college, it's a great place to gain initial corporate lab experience.

Cons

Often feel like I am micro-managed, pay is very low, probably lowest for the field.

Advice to Senior Management

Trust your workers, don't have to look over everyone's shoulders once you've delegated a task,

Pros

Good for getting your foot in the door. Diversity of projects. Great way to build many relationships with Big Pharma.

Cons

Too much work! Never a thank-you from upper mgmt. A few do all the work, while the rest of them sit around and watch. Of course the lazy ones get promoted.

Advice to Senior Management

Need to figure out whose actually doing the work, not promote just because someone's been warming their seat for 10 years. Quit nickle and diming your clients; they will leave.

Pros

You get to travel and devote your life to a corporation that does not treat the CRAs very well.

Cons

The work will consume your life. Management is not supportive of the CRAs. Quality is trumped by deliverables. The company is filled with unhappy people. It is a large revolving door and good CRAs end up leaving. The weak CRAs get promoted to management.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat the CRAs and middle management better. Intervene when sponsors become inconsiderate during those team calls.

Pros

One is able to aquire different skills working for a small pharmaceutical manufacturing company. Working in development and research gives the satisfaction of being a part of discovering solutions to cancer and HIV

Cons

May be challenging to get into Pharmaceutical companies especially if one does not have inside connections. Research and development may also be frustrating, not being able to develop something that commercializes

Advice to Senior Management

Openess to employing candidates who do not have inside connection should be encouraged. Enourage in-house training , empolyees who are expect in a subject matter may train other empolyees with minimal experience.

Pros

If you have no experience with any analytical work and are fresh out of college.

Cons

Very poor compensation (you'd have to be fresh out of college and still living with your parents to find their compensation sufficient to live on...). Few opportunities for advancement (very rigid in their structure and not based on capabilities/capacity of a particular individual) and once you get pigeonholed into a particular area/discipline, it is very unlikely you'll be able to switch to a different area. Very few truly knowledgeable people there (perhaps because of the very high turnover rate... It seemed like ~10-20% per year).

Advice to Senior Management

Like another commenter said, there really isn't any point on giving them any feedback because they don't care (they do give lip service to the feedback though...). In any case: Higher salaries (and raises... less than 1% per year really doesn't cut it.) might decrease your turnover rate (and hence your expenses with respect to training new employees). Higher salaries/reasonable raises (and/or bonuses) might also increase employee moral (during my tenure, it seemed like over 50% of the people I knew were openly looking for other jobs or only working because they were stuck in Madison for some reason or another (spouse had a good job, significant other finishing up college, etc.)

Pros

Training and overall morale were fantastic when I first started working there. # of PTO days is much higher than some CROs.

Cons

A lot of dead-weight associate directors/directors that have been there 10-15+ years who are only interested in their own careers and not helping others. Extreme favoritism shown to East Coast and European employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Critically take into consideration feedback collected from staff about their project directors. Reward/retain employees who provide high levels of customer satisfaction/repeat business.

Pros

The benefits are pretty good, the salary is reasonable, location is convenient. They do try to keep employees informed about what is happening in the company.

Cons

For IT people - this is a non-IT company so management doesn't always understand the issues or what is involved in solving problems.

Pros

Career Opportunities
Benefits
Flexible work from home practices
Management
Information Systems
Internal training available

Cons

Need to be willing to work in a fast paced environment

Pros

Full service CRO with expertise in all areas of clinical research and drug development, including preclinical/nonclinical studies, clinical trial management etc, flexibility in work schedule,
Getting to learn a new clinical trial database,

Cons

Working in a fast paced environment, focus is more on the data entry and data mangement in a CRO. gg

Advice to Senior Management

I have worked very briefly for this CRO and can't comment on this aspect. I still have to write 6 more words to regsiter at this site.

Pros

Good Systems are in place
Big CRO

Cons

No work/life balance
Low salaries
Even if you work 70-80 hours in a week, no credit at all
Favoritism
Departmental politics - Clinical Management and Project Management are always on conflicts
One of the CRO with worst Project Management group (Only APAC)
No transparency
No Career development and Progression

Advice to Senior Management

Retain good talent shed incompetent middle management