<p>I was reading an article online about how PhD's are sometimes not well fit to industry, and one other degree that was mentioned as a way to better integrate science and business was a professional science master's. Does anyone know anything more about what these entail and if they are actually useful? Thanks.</p>
<p>Yeah, these degrees can be really valuable for biotech. University of Wisconsin offers a professional masters in biotech. It's a two year program that integrates, bench science, patent law and marketing. The kinds of projects that this program includes are designing business plans that would be able to garner venture capital. Also, preparing legal defense to show the novelty of a concept or product. Designing primers/assays that could be used to validate biomarkers or drug efficacy. These programs provide invaluable experience that are left out of PhDs. However, the UW program also lacks the personnel management, grant writing and other elements that would be great to have. Also, this program is expensive so it would really require an employer's cooperation. Like a PhD program, this would also pigeonhole an individual which may be a problem if you decide afterwards that you do like academia or manufacturing or public health or scientific writing. If you're fairly certain that you want to be in project management in biotech, this is probably a better option than a PhD if for no other reason than that it is shorter and more focused.</p>
<p>PSM graduate degrees have been around for ten years. They are designed to have a curriculum of 2/3 in the science or math discipline (biotech, applied physics, industrial math, etc) and 1/2 business (communications, project management business plan development, etc.) PSM's are unique in that each program has an employer advisory board. The employers help shape the curriculum, host interns, oversee projects, and hire graduates.</p>
<p>There are 120 PSM degree programs offered at 60 universities with a 25% increase expected in the next two years. The employment rate is 93% with the remaining 7% pursuing additional degrees. PSM grads earn at $10k more than the average graduate degree earner.</p>