This series aims to provide PhD students and postdocs with an understanding of different career options in Life Sciences.

Through the presentations of invited key opinion leaders and Q&A sessions with our club attendees, we cover a broad range of career paths one can follow after his/her time at the iBV.

To start our serie of Career Talks, we had the opportunity and great pleasure to welcome Christian Czech, Head of Pfizer Rare Disease Research Unit in Nice, France to learn and exchange on careers within phamaceutical companies.

After completing his PhD in Heidelberg, Germany, working on animal models and molecular mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease, Dr. Czech took a first leap in industry by joining Rhone-Poulenc Rorer in Paris, France. He then continued his path by supporting research and clinical development of biomarkers for more than 15 years as Biomarker Leader and Section Head in Neuroscience and Rare Diseases at Roche in Basel, Switzerland.

Finally, Dr. Czech embarked on an exciting adventure by becoming Senior Director, Head of Discovery and Biomarker at Therachon, a blooming biotech company aiming to provide treatments for a condition termed Achondroplasia.

As the company was later on bought by Pfizer, Dr. Czech continued developing Achondroplasia-related projects as Head of Pfizer Rare Disease Research Unit in Nice.

Benefitting from Dr. Czech’s deep expertise and insights, we had the opportunity to learn more about the positions one can apply for after a PhD in Life Sciences, potential entry points in industry, valuable skills to develop, typical workflows in pharma and career development advices for early researchers.

If you missed it, you can find the detailed summary of our Q&A session on the iBV common server (we are particularly grateful to Emily Plumb for keeping a record of our exchange with Christian Czech).

(By Nicolas Roby)