Stable job, robust training, stale science
Pros
— Useful institutional scientific knowledge inherited from Novartis days (protocols, data analysis worksheets, etc.) — Several high-caliber research scientists (expertise, problem-solving ability, character, productivity), often with elite academic backgrounds, work there — Training offered to new employees is excellent. Highly recommend to fresh grads, or career pivoters. — Friendly, responsible, and respectful coworkers — Pays for select employees to attend scientific conferences — Genuinely innovative research in a couple areas due to a few driven individual scientists (this is not the norm) — Average benefits, nice pay. — Low job stress, because stale science is hard to prove. Flu vaccine business stays robust, and everyone knows research toward experimental new biotech platforms can’t always succeed. Also, parent company CSL does not have many scientists in senior leadership, and when it does they are not the cream of the crop. Seqirus is not a company for scientific research, but it is a stable business and offers the resources for motivated scientists to do quality research if they can/choose — but see cons.
Cons
— Objecting to the views of anyone director-level or above will definitely lead to retaliation. — Employs known creeps and predators (just ignore them, or if you can’t, carry a weapon and get a new job) — No research strategy is driven from the director level across several critical functions, which leads to stale science overall (unless individual research scientists propose research) — Site leadership often has the hiring philosophy of hiring to fill positions just for the sake of filling positions, not to add value toward the company’s business goals, resulting in a lot of incompetent and insecure people being hired…but to be honest this is also a huge pro. Seqirus offers opportunities to advance into leadership positions in the scientific world without inhibitingly high barriers to entry like being able to pass high school algebra or chemistry.