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Get ahead in pharmaceuticals

When she was teaching in the York at Seneca pharmaceutical technology program, Laleh Bighash soon realized that her students -- whether they were new immigrants or educated here, but young and inexperienced -- would find it tough getting a job.

DAVID CHILTON

[ 2006-02-08 ]

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Employers are ever more demanding and want more than a BSc, says Bighash, who graduated with a degree in pharmacology and toxicology from the University of Toronto in 1993. She should know. It took Bighash seven or eight months to find a job herself following graduation.

"I got an understanding of new immigrants or people who graduated from university (in Canada but) haven't been able to get a job," says Bighash, who taught from 2000 to 2003.

And, based on her experience as a founder and editor-in-chief of Pharmaceutical Canada magazine, she also learned just exactly what companies in the pharmaceuticals industry want from prospective employees.

These insights lead Bighash and a partner to start the Academy of Applied Pharmaceutical Sciences (AAPS), a post-graduate private college that enrolled its first students in 2004.

The college is registered and regulated by Ontario's Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. Students can study programs in pharmaceutical quality control, quality assurance, pharmaceutical regulatory affairs and clinical research, this last specialty pending Ministry approval. Applicants must have a science degree of some kind.

"These programs all have been designed with a specific career in mind," Bighash says. "People who go for these kinds of (qualifications) have to know that they will be working specifically in the pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical and medical device industries."

SIX MONTHS

Instruction at AAPS is hands-on, Bighash says, with most students taking about six months to finish their studies. There are eight student intakes a year. The college doesn't have many competitors, she continues, although the Toronto Institute of Pharmaceutical Technology is one and Seneca College is another. However, Seneca's program differs from AAPS's in some significant respects, Bighash points out.

Tuition at the college costs $7,000-plus, but students can pay as they go. The male-female split is about even. Average student age is 30 to 40. Bighash says starting salaries for her graduates are in the low $40K.

The quality of students at AAPS is high, if the respective education of one current student and one graduate is any indication. Anju Gulati-Fakhuja, who has a doctorate in plant biotechnology from an Indian university, has taught at the Universities of Saskatchewan, Calgary and Guelph. But, she says, "I don't want any more contract jobs." So Gulati-Fakhuja did some research and decided to refocus on the pharmaceuticals industry because of the opportunities it offers, choosing to attend AAPS.

"I just felt that that is the right college. I like the attitude of the people," says Gulati-Fakhuja, who's been in Canada seven years and doesn't consider the switch from academic life a come down.

Elena Cristache, who trained as a chemical engineer in Romania, graduated from AAPS in 2004 and works as a quality and assurance manager in Brantford, Ont. Arriving in Canada in 1997, she worked a "survival job" for a year then as an analyst in Kitchener testing tobacco for five years but got laid off in 2003.

She thought she'd find another job right away, but no such luck. Cristache turned to pharmaceuticals because "it has a future" and to AAPS because it offered flexible, part-time study and instructors recruited directly from industry. And now that she's a manager, Cristache says seeing AAPS on an job application is a bonus.

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