Windows into Industry

While pursuing her PhD at the UIC College of Pharmacy, Dr. Emily Pierce, PhD ’18, felt the tug of a career in industry.

Yet Pierce confesses she didn’t know what jobs were even available, let alone how her skills might translate to the corporate environment.

“I knew the academic atmosphere, but not much beyond that,” Pierce says.

In early 2017, however, Pierce learned of a new program at UIC called the Pharmacology Industry Internships for PhD Students—PIIPS, for short. Supported by an institutional award from the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, the competitive program offered summer internships in industry to PhD students.

Selected as one of UIC’s three inaugural PIIPS recipients, Pierce spent the summer of 2017 working with antibodydrug conjugates in the Bioanalysis and Biotransformation group at AbbVie.

“That experience allowed me to see the day-to-day interaction that goes on in industry and to understand how my skills applied to that world,” says Pierce, who now works at Acceleron Pharma in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Attracted to industry

Lured by diverse project opportunities and closer ties to the marketplace, students across the UIC College of Pharmacy remain intrigued by the prospects of working in industry. In fact, more than one-third of the College’s PhD students pursue careers in industry upon graduation.

Recognizing this, College leadership has increasingly leveraged existing partnerships, faculty connections, and the College’s national standing to provide students exposure to industry and its dynamic environment.

Today, through internships, fellowships, and clinical experiences, students are interacting with pharmaceutical heavyweights such as AbbVie, Takeda, and Genentech as well as upstart agencies like Sirenas, a marine natural product drug discovery company based in San Diego. Through these opportunities, students are building professional relationships, applying their training, and gaining new skills while learning about the corporate environment.

“From working on regulatory affairs and drug discovery to running experiments, our students are getting a valuable firsthand look at industry,” says Professor and Associate Dean for Research Dr. Joanna Burdette, who also serves as PIIPS director.

Over the two most recent summers, six of the College’s PhD students have completed PIIPS internships. From conducting experiments at the bench to penning reports and meeting ambitious deadlines, PIIPS has afforded students like Pierce a test run within industry alongside an opportunity to enhance the technical as well as soft skills necessary to thrive in industry’s fast-churning environment.

“Through PIIPS, students have a unique opportunity to see if the industry environment is a fit for them and if they’re a fit for it,” says Dr. Lindsey McQuade, the College’s director of research and graduate resources.

Chris Saffore

Photo by Barry Donald

Beyond PIIPS

PIIPS, however, is far from alone in providing the College’s students a window into industry.

As a PharmD student, Dr. Jennifer Samp, PharmD ’11, Masters ’12, PhD ’17, completed an internship with Takeda before later landing, through the College, a two-year fellowship with the global pharmaceutical giant. The fellowship enabled Samp to take classes toward her Master’s degree while she also tackled pharmacoeconomics projects at Takeda’s headquarters in suburban Deerfield.

“The opportunities UIC introduced me to in industry and the feeling I could have a bigger impact in that environment only confirmed that’s where I wanted to be,” says Samp, who is now in her fifth year with AbbVie’s Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR) team.

Like Samp, Dr. Chris Saffore, PharmD ’16, also enjoyed a two-year fellowship with Takeda. Working in the company’s HEOR group, he collaborated with teams across the enterprise—marketing, medical, brand, and others—to develop value and evidence-generation strategies for Takeda products.

Each fall, meanwhile, Burdette and McQuade host a roundtable program in which recent interns share their industry experiences with current students, specifically discussing industry’s benefits, drawbacks, and opportunities.

“This is a forum for students to learn firsthand from their peers about experiences in industry and get that unique perspective,” Burdette says.

A winning proposition

Yet, students are not the only ones benefiting from these industry opportunities. Such arrangements allow the College to deepen its ties with important industry partners, many of whom welcome the chance to work with an institution known for producing talented personnel and novel research.

When Sirenas learned of the PIIPS program, the company was eager to work with UIC given its pioneering work in natural products. Over the last two summers, the company has hosted two lab-savvy interns with backgrounds in natural products discovery, Dr. Peter Sullivan PhD ’18 and current PhD candidate Brian Guo.

“Both of these individuals came in, hit the ground running, and brought valuable perspective to our company.”

DR. OLIVER VINING Sirenas discovery scientist

For Burdette, that’s the ultimate winning proposition as all parties benefit – the College, its industry partners and, most importantly, the students UIC serves.

“We want students to feel they received a quality education and that we exposed them to experiences that trained them to be successful in whatever compelling career path they chose,” Burdette says. �