The life sciences industry has seen incredible growth and development over many years, with the past three year’s substantial innovations and advancements. For life sciences staffing, current emerging trends can positively affect job growth and sustainability. From advancements in artificial intelligence and cloud computing to greater prioritization of R&D funding, you can expect these emerging trends to have varying results across the sector. Learn more about these top trends and their effects on life sciences staffing and recruiting.
Top Trends in Life Sciences
The life sciences field has seen significant development across multiple applications. Mergers and acquisitions over the last several years have led to a boom in growth, resulting in the expansion of large biotechnology companies and medical systems. The increased use of technological advancements, such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and greater data integration, has also led to more growth throughout the industry. In addition, R&D funding and expansive pharmaceutical manufacturing have positively affected the growth of jobs and innovation in the life sciences sector.
What the Life Sciences Trend Means for Staffing
The trends currently emerging in life sciences have far-reaching impacts on staffing, such as increasing job availability, monetary support, and data transparency within the field. Some effects of these trends you may expect to see across life sciences staffing include:
Faster R&D Outcomes With Real-World Evidence
According to a study by Deloitte, 91% of life sciences organizations plan to prioritize R&D investments.1 Even with the financial challenges associated with current models, real-world evidence (RWE) is emerging as a leading factor in R&D funding. With this growing focus on RWE in R&D planning, life sciences organizations can better understand disease progression and monitor clinical safety and efficacy.
During the pandemic, this emerging trend led to the ability of life sciences organizations to innovate R&D efforts quickly by collecting data more efficiently, predicting outbreak hotspots, and assessing vaccine effectiveness, further amplifying research initiatives in the field and creating more opportunities for life sciences staffing.
Growth of Artificial Intelligence
It’s not surprising that the ongoing advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning are affecting life sciences staffing. From drug discovery via data collection and analysis to clinical trial design and startup, AI has made huge strides in the sector.2 This means life sciences staffing will continue to expand, and we expect to see additional technological roles open up in the field. Many of these emerging roles will go beyond medical, clinical, and pharmaceutical positions to include data analysts, AI developers, and even software engineers.
Greater Data Transparency
Over the past several years, especially during the pandemic, we’ve seen the growth of cloud integration and technical applications to manage clinical data. Healthcare systems worldwide are adopting this trend, leading to a greater need for data transparency and security. By integrating cloud technology, more life sciences organizations can collect, share, and assess data collected from clinical trials, drug discovery and development, and even patient care facilities.
We expect life sciences staffing to expand beyond clinical positions to include more technical roles to support the ongoing use of cloud computing. With 83% of pharmaceutical companies already using cloud computing, there’s a greater need for data transparency and security.3 This means you can expect growth in the life sciences job market, including cybersecurity, informatics, and cloud administration roles.
As these trends continue to emerge, we expect to see many changes in life sciences staffing. More organizations using technical applications will mean a greater influx of roles that will become necessary to support. By evaluating these effects, you can better understand how to fulfill your organization’s life science staffing needs.
