Winning Hearts & Winning Minds
Fostering Innovation in the Biotech Industry Through Relationship Building
OUR APPROACH
The Biotech industry has long been dependent on collaboration and networking for everything from the facilitation of new ideas to opportunity creation. In order to bring about lasting change we seek to work within that same framework. Our programs prioritize, “openness to mutual influence and a commitment to unifying,” through relationship building and educational opportunities (Changing Hearts and Minds, Rusch & Horsford). In utilizing this approach we aim to win the hearts and minds of those who can make a difference and can also benefit from that change.
WINNING HEARTS
Opportunities for connection (through events, mentorship, informational interviews, etc.) provides students and young professionals with crucial experience by gaining knowledge of the industry, how to successfully navigate the industry and help in expanding their networks. However mentorship and networking opportunities don’t just help young professionals, throughout the mentorship and relationship building process the industry expert is also, often times, placed in to a position of expanding their own world view. This process moves mentors and volunteers from, “passive to promoters and possibly even champions of the change, [which] is critical to delivering lasting change” (Leading Transformational Change: Winning the Hearts & Minds).
Lack of representation may lead to lack of access to effective medical interventions. Approval and indications for new therapeutics are often restricted to the demographics of the populations included in the clinical studies. Lack of representation may therefore impede access to a specific therapeutic agent for some groups of patients.
Lack of representation compounds health disparities in the populations currently underrepresented and excluded in clinical trials and clinical research. While achieving health equity and reducing health disparities requires far more than just equitable representation in clinical research, failure to achieve this leaves these disparities unaddressed and reinforces inequities.
Lack of representation costs hundreds of billions of dollars. An economic analysis carried out by the committee demonstrates high financial and social costs — measured by life expectancy, disability-free life, and years in the labor force — projected to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars range over the next three decades. If better representation in clinical trials reduces health disparities by even a modest amount, the analysis found that achieving diverse representation in research would be worth billions of dollars in savings to the United States.
#BIIGideas #BIIGimpact
“I’ve been blessed to have very supportive mentors throughout my career, who have guided my professional development but also have allowed me to discover my own niche in the realm of organization development. Abbie Celniker has been a constant mentor throughout my career, and her impact underscores how critical mentorship can be for one’s career.”
Fostering Innovation in the Biotech Industry Through Relationship Building
Winning Minds:
Of Underrepresented Individuals: We are looking to provide educational opportunities such as panels, meet-the-mentor networking experiences, informational interviews and guiding students through scientific conferences. “Many longitudinal studies quantitative evaluations of mentored STEM students have shown that mentoring influences scientific identity as mentors link students to career resources and research opportunities, provide emotional support, foster students’ confidence and science self-efficacy and facilitate their valuing of scientific research” (‘Looking at Myself in the Future’: how mentoring shapes scientific identity for STEM students from underrepresented groups). Many of us wouldn’t be in the field of Biotech if it weren’t for educational interactions in which we learned about opportunities in the healthcare field besides direct patient care. This insight into other opportunities changed our lives and we hope to intentionally create these experiences for others.
Of Professionals in the Biotech Industry: “Approximately one-quarter of the U.S. public health workforce is projected to retire in the next 10 years…As such, it is imperative that the… biomedical research community prepare to mentor a diverse population of public health researchers (United States Census Bureau, 2018). This requires first that there is collective and consistent understanding that achieving diversity in science hinges on cultivating talent and promoting the full inclusion of excellence across the entire population” (Mentorship: The Necessity of Intentionality). The future success of the biotech industry hinges on experienced professionals sharing their wisdom of learned experience and their subject knowledge. Furthermore, mentors intimately learn the cultural values of diverse groups, how to navigate these differences and how to unlock potential of mentees across culture. Mentors intellectually benefit from their experience through, “identify[ing] their strengths and weaknesses, improv[ing] their cultural competency and interpersonal skills, and implement[ing] effective strategies” (Mentorship: The Necessity of Intentionality).
Winning Hearts:
Of Underrepresented Individuals: “These cross-class friendships - what the researchers called economic connectedness - had a stronger impact than school quality, family structure, job availability or a community’s racial composition. The people you know, the study suggests, open up opportunities” (Vast New Study Shows Key to Reducing Poverty). Forging close relationships with others who are different from us opens our worldview, challenges preconceived notions/bias and helps inspire possibilities we might not have even known existed. Additional research shows, “mentoring and peer support also intensified [mentees] motivation to pursue careers in public health” Mentorship: The Necessity of Intentionality). Mentorship and connections formed during educational events fuel the passion of diverse individuals interested in the life sciences.
Of Professionals in the Biotech Industry: We are looking to intentionally diversify our own networks and expand our world views, while offering educational and career insight to students and young professionals. "In our attempts to create more awake and aware environments, we’re forgetting that numbers typically don’t inspire us to change our behavior — people and stories do” (How Sharing Our Story Builds Inclusion). Volunteers feel a sense of satisfaction in the knowledge that they have done something for the greater good. They help rectify a shared issue within the community (lack of diversity) and contribute towards a common goal within their community (the need to prepare the next generation of Biotech employees for 25% of the workforce retiring in the next 10 years). Aside from the sense of meaningful contribution and purpose - volunteers get to know the very real issues diverse individuals face and get to help this individual push forward in their career and life. Our volunteers are helping to transform lives and communities.
We believe in the power of of education, passion and collaboration. Our passion lies in improving public health for all - through increased diversity in perspective, leading to innovation.
We need your help and we need your voice. Innovation is waiting.
