Since 2001, 300,000 pharma employees have lost their jobs, primarily in R&D and sales. That's according to Clifford Mintz, who spoke at a session on new job opportunities in biotech and pharma at the annual AAPS meeting in Washington, D.C. However, the news isn't as bad for medtech. "The medical devices industry has been experiencing explosive growth for the past decade," Mintz said. Regulatory hurdles in the medical device industry are much lower than they are for biologics or small molecules, making the industry a more stable alternative to biotech and pharma. The demand for devices, which address problems that can't be treated with medicine, will continue to grow as the population ages. Job seekers with strong backgrounds in bioinformatics, genomics, engineering and translational medicine are best suited to this field. News