Pharma and healthcare: a growing sector after Covid-19

From humble beginnings more than half a century ago, Ireland now enjoys a booming – and enviable – life-sciences sector that directly employs more than 50,000 people across medical devices, pharma and biotechnology. Ireland is home to almost all of the global players in this sector and is increasingly a hotbed for incubating SMEs and spin-offs.

Exports may top more than €45 billion annually, but this doesn’t mean the sector is immune to many of the post-pandemic challenges other industries are facing. Indeed, its rapid and exponential growth means many organisations are expanding at breakneck speed and urgently need more people with the right mix of skills and talent on their books.

Bernard Mallee is director of communications and advocacy for the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association. He says Ireland’s biopharmaceutical industry is particularly strong, with clusters of manufacturing, research and commercial operations sited in regions across the country.

“Our industry is a geostrategic asset,” Mallee notes. “Medicine’s innovation raises healthcare standards, allowing people to live better for longer, but it drives economic performance too. Ireland’s economic buoyancy is, in part, attributable to tax revenues, export activity and payroll and jobs generated by our industry.”

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Garrett Murray, head of life sciences at Enterprise Ireland, agrees that the pharma, medtech and health sectors weathered the pandemic better than most, being integrally involved in many of the necessary innovations.

“The life-sciences sector is agile and innovative by nature and one of the most research-intensive sectors of the Irish economy,” he says. “Companies in the life-sciences sector demonstrated their resilience and agility in how they responded to the pandemic, with companies supported by Enterprise Ireland at the forefront of meeting the challenges Covid-19 posed through the application of their research and the delivery of solutions.”

According to Murray, last year companies supported by Enterprise Ireland in the wider life-sciences sector posted significant gains in net job creation and in export growth. In this portfolio of companies supported by Enterprise Ireland, employment increased by more than 10 per cent in 2021, across all regions of Ireland. “This success is exemplified by companies like Vitalograph, ICS Medical Devices and Croom Medical, all of whom announced significant expansions this year,” he adds.

Michael Lohan, IDA head of life sciences, says the biopharma industry has continued to grow and thrive in Ireland post-pandemic. “IDA client companies in the sector now employ over 42,500 highly qualified people directly. In the last year alone there have been 15 announcements of new investments or expansions in the sector.”

Mallee adds that we are currently in a golden period of innovation – and we will need a strong pipeline of talent to capitalise on that.

“Scientists say that we are living in the ‘bio-century’. This is a period characterised by profound innovation, with the discovery of new medicines catalysed by the intersection of a better understanding of human biology and the new tools of technology, artificial intelligence and machine learning. It is an exciting time for medicines innovators and for students weighing their career options.”

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Inevitably, this translates to an all-time high in demand for skills across the entire industry, he says.

“We want people with know-how in a range of areas, including biotherapeutic research, bioprocess design and operations, bio-analytics, engineering, chemistry, toxicology, regulation, licensing, commercial operations, digital marketing and public policy and reputation. We want people with a mix of technical team-working and strategic thinking capabilities. A globally networked industry with a mandate to translate science for the public good should interest a generation yearning to make a difference in the world.”

Murray agrees, noting that a recent survey of Enterprise Ireland client companies attending International Markets Week found that more than one in four (26 per cent) had cited skills and talent shortages as the biggest challenge to their business.

“When I speak with Enterprise Ireland-supported life-sciences companies, they consistently highlight three key challenges in their sector: the impact and implementation of new regulations; the cost of doing business; and what is usually first on their list: attracting and retaining skills. This reality reflects the situation in many other countries with whom we collaborate and compete.”

It’s not all bad news, however, Murray adds. “It is important to note that one in four third-level graduates in Ireland is in Stem, the highest per capita in Europe.”

Access to talent is the leading factor in international location decisions and it is the core foundation of Ireland’s value proposition for FDI, says Lohan.

“IDA is actively engaged with a number of government departments on the skills, talent and innovation agenda, an example of which is the current expert skills group, which is defining the future skills needs for the pharmaceutical sector. Client companies rate Ireland’s talent base and our education system highly.”

As in many other countries, however, these companies face increasing difficulties sourcing the skills they need as technology becomes ever more ubiquitous across sectors.

According to Murray, companies are continually looking at innovative ways of attracting and retaining talent across all functions.

“Many companies are now looking to attract talent earlier in the career life cycle, and more intensively support the professional development of those team members. Other companies are looking outside of their traditional pools for recruitment and are instead intensively training team members who are open to a new challenge but have no experience in the sector. Some companies are also looking to apprenticeship models to form a career development path for new employees.”

He adds that the life-sciences sector engages intensively to build linkages with Irish higher-education institutions, SkillNet and other initiatives. “Many of the client companies we work with have cited this as being critical for them in identifying and attracting talent.”

Mallee suggests that Ireland should bolster these efforts to maximise industry-government collaboration in the design and delivery of education and training programmes for tomorrow’s medicines innovators.

“That means higher-education institutions, alongside SFI-funded research centres like the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Pharmaceuticals and APC Microbiome, and the National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training, the education and training institute, continuing to work with industry on the research and skills needs of the future,” he says. “Covid-19 has taught us the value of co-operation. We should work together on the needs of a scaling industry and enhance public engagement with science.”

Cathal Divilly, managing director of the Great Place to Work Institute Ireland, says the pharma and healthcare sector is an attractive sector in which to work, for a variety of reasons.

“This sector is very dedicated to creating cultures and has in many ways the perfect mix or formula to help them be great. They have strong leadership with great talent doing purposeful work and, more importantly than any of that, they have a continual improvement focus. This continual improvement focus when it comes to culture is so important as they are used to listening to feedback and making cultural improvements.”

Indeed, the motivation behind establishing the Great Place to Work Awards was to help organisations build great cultures within. “One of the ways we do this is by shining a light on great cultures,” Divilly says. “Our winners are organisations that have committed to building a great culture and they consistently work to improve their workplace culture.”

Culture, he feels, is the reason why the industry enjoys such high retention rates. This is critical, given that the talent war is no longer simply within individual sectors but spread across sectors and countries. “We see companies competing for talent across sectors and with the rise of work flexibility, more and more talent can work for certain companies but live in a different country.”

Organisations are therefore keen to differentiate themselves when it comes to attracting the highly skilled staff they need to make their mark in the sector. It’s about getting the basics right, according to Divilly. “They need to focus on doing the basics really well, simple things like communication and leadership. They also need to have strong listening practices in place to get feedback from employees and ensure they follow up on the employee voice. Lastly, be clear on what your employee value proposition is.”

Mallee says this is key. “People are drawn to our industry because they know someone who has been affected by a disease and they want to make a difference in helping to solve it for the next generation. This is what we call ‘six degrees of innovation’ – that someone we know, or ourselves, or someone who knows someone we know has been affected by disease and, sometimes, they have found a way to deal with it through medicine or a vaccine.

“That’s when people who work in medical innovation feel they do really meaningful, rewarding work.”