the perception of diversity, as 40 percent of companies claim they are inclusive while just 9 percent of women in industry share that view. The report said the lack of diversity perpetuates a cycle that hampers recruitment and retention. The study found that 46 percent of women would reject a job offer from a company that had only men on its board and management team.
Abbie Celniker, who was chair of MassBio’s board of directors from 2016 to 2018, led the organization’s efforts to shrink the gender diversity gap in life sciences, including working with Liftstream to put together last year’s report. Under Celniker, MassBio and the BioPharma Executive Council drafted an open letter to the life sciences community—signed by more than 100 executives—that called on companies to improve gender balance in the industry. The MassBio and Liftstream report last year also offered 50 recommended actions for companies to improve their gender diversity. For example, the report suggests companies remove gender bias in job descriptions and ensure that candidate pools are gender balanced and diverse. MassBio recently committed to gender balance in panel discussions at its events, and on its own board of directors. And it also hired its first director of diversity and inclusion, Edie Stringfellow, who, among other things, is moderating a MassBio event next month on how to implement Massachusetts’s new pay equity law.
Merck Exploratory Science Center—Diversity in the Lab & Beyond
Merck’s main R&D presence in the Boston area is its discovery research site, which opened in 2004. Aiming to bolster its capabilities at earlier stages of drug discovery, the company opened the Merck Exploratory Science Center (MESC) in 2017. The company says that diversity has been an important factor at this Cambridge site since it launched.
MESC’s 40-person staff is 40 percent women. Half of the staff is non-Caucasian, coming from more than 15 different countries. The composition of MESC also includes diversity of experience, with early career scientists working alongside seasoned researchers, evenly split between those from academia and those from industry.
The commitment to diversity extends beyond MESC’s laboratories. MESC scientists mentor Bunker Hill Community College students who are interested in STEM careers. The MESC is also a sponsor of the Biomedical Science Careers Program (BSCP), a nonprofit organization that provides students, particularly under-represented minorities, from high school to the postdoctoral level, with guidance and support as they prepare for careers in the sciences. Merck says several scientists from MESC have volunteered as mentors or speakers for BSCP events.
Kate Haviland—Making an Imprint on Blueprint
Despite the efforts of life science companies to improve diversity in management and corporate governance, women still hold less than a quarter of the industry’s executive positions and just 14 percent of its board seats, according to research from life sciences recruitment firm LiftStream. Cambridge-based cancer drug developer Blueprint Medicines is bucking those trends, an effort led by its chief business officer, Kate Haviland.
Since Haviland joined Blueprint in 2016, half of the company’s new hires have been women. Four of the eight members of Blueprint’s senior management team are women. Haviland mentors other women at the company. She has also led initiatives that support diversity at Blueprint, such as the “Stand Up For Science Program,” which highlighted female and minority scientists at the company using a storytelling event and social media campaign.
Haviland was a member of the first class of Boardroom Ready, a program that prepares women for board positions. In June, Haviland was appointed to the board of Cambridge biotech Fulcrum Therapeutics.
Ramsey Johnson, OUTBio—Building a LGBTQ Biopharma Community
Over the last three years, Ramsey Johnson has worked arduously in his spare time to build, from scratch, OUTBio, a networking organization for LGBTQ members of the Boston-area biopharma community. Since it started in 2015 as an informal meeting of 11 people, OUTBio has built a membership roll of about 500, all without a website. It has grown just through word of mouth, emails, and Facebook and LinkedIn pages. OUTBio now puts on monthly networking events hosted by Boston-area biopharma firms big and small, drawing more than 100 attendees to each event. It may be the only group of its kind, and size, in the country.
Johnson organizes the events: maintaining the membership lists, acting as the liaison for event hosts, searching for new places to hold future gatherings, getting invitations out and tracking RSVPs. The host company supplies the food and drinks.
One of those host companies has been Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. Its participation in an early OUTBio event sparked the formation of a diversity group at the company. The team has worked with HR to review hiring practices and has its own voice on Alnylam’s website.
Now Johnson plans to turn OUTBio into a nonprofit organization and is exploring how else OUTBio can grow and expand its mission.
—Ben Fidler
Check out more stories profiling the other finalists in the CEO, Startup, Digital Trailblazer, Innovation at the Intersection, Big Idea, Contrarian, Newcomer and Young Innovator categories, as well as the winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Ben Fidler contributed to this article.
Photo by Flickr user Helge V. Keitel a Creative Commons license. Photo has been cropped to fit Xconomy publishing system standards.
