Got biopharma job jitters? If so, you're not alone; 44% of pharma workers are worried about getting the ax, according to a PharmaIQ survey. Yet there are some bright spots in the market for life sciences jobs, and one area of acute demand has been in bioinformatics. Corporate recruiter Rick von Rueden gave FierceBiotech IT the lowdown on opportunities in this hot field.

"There has certainly been a rapidly rising upward slope of demand for experienced leaders in bioinformatics, and that includes research informatics and clinical informatics as well," von Rueden said in a telephone interview.


Why? In short, biopharma is suffering from a bad case of data overload. New tools such as next-generation DNA sequencers have spurred an exponential rise in the amount of molecular info to explore and understand, and the information-driven biopharma business needs people with expertise in computers and biology to streamline analysis of the huge amount of data, to help lead the way to discovery of targets for breakthrough drugs and diagnostics. Pharma, of course, is in desperate need for new products.

A member of the executive search team at J. Robert Scott, von Rueden has been hunting for senior bioinformatics pros to fill positions at biotech companies and research outfits. He recently recruited a chief informatics officer for Blackstone Group's Equity Healthcare. Now he's scouting for someone with bioinformatics expertise to head the quantitative biology group at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York.

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