I want to go into pharmaceutical R&D after college, to work for a company like Bristol myers, merck, or pfizer.
What is the most efficient major to continue this path? I was thinking chemical engineering, with a minor in biomedical engineering? Do you guys recommend majoring in Biomedical engineering?
Can I get a job doing R&D with a bachelor's degree from, say, Caltech or Harvey mudd, or Carnegie mellon? Would I need a master's or a doctorate?
I was thinking about working with synthesizing the drugs themselves (not developing bio-technology).
Thanks guys, this will help me know what to major in.
No replies yet, so I’ll weigh in. I am a chemical engineer and I work in life sciences, not pharma, but I have a general understanding of the industry.
If you want to get that kind of research position your best path is chemistry (organic, medicinal, synthetic, etc.). Biomedical engineering is more geared toward medical devices, so that would not be the right choice. Chemical engineering is closer, but would generally be focused on process development, not discovering/synthesizing the drug itself. The closest you might get with a ChemE degree is developing new mechanisms of drug delivery.
You can get a job in R&D with a bachelor's degree, but only as a lab tech running experiments someone else designs. If you want to be actively engaged in research in pharma you pretty much need a doctorate.
Thanks. I am interested in majoring in chemistry, but I was afraid that it would be hard to find a job.
I know a person who went to harvard for physics but ended up switching to financial econ because their graduated physics peers couldn’t find jobs. That’s why I was looking to major in applied chemistry rather than chemistry. I don’t think many schools offer different majors within chemistry. I poked around my colleges and the only ones that differentiate chemistry (organic/ analytical/ materials) majors seem to be caltech and carnegie mellon.