Are regulatory affairs specialist job opportunities growing or declining?

Are jobs in this industry on the rise? Are there any sub-sectors that are growing?

Where are the jobs? Which places have the most regulatory affairs specialist opportunities?

declining

Right now there are approximately 90 Applications to one RA job

Do you guys have experience? For devices, I'm finding the job market is wide open to anyone with a few 510(k)s under their belt.

Hi Bob,
I could not agree with you more! I have been searching for a year to get my foot in the door as a RA Specialist to no avail. I am a graduate of Johns Hopkins M.Sc. in Bioscience Regulatory Affairs and have 7 years pharma experience, but I have yet to find a job. It seems as medical device companies today will not even consider you without hands on experience.
Best,
Susan in Reading

Susan in Reading, Pennsylvania said: Hi Bob,
I could not agree with you more! I have been searching for a year to get my foot in the door as a RA Specialist to no avail. I am a graduate of Johns Hopkins M.Sc. in Bioscience Regulatory Affairs and have 7 years pharma experience, but I have yet to find a job. It seems as medical device companies today will not even consider you without hands on experience.
Best,
Susan in Reading

Susan,
Its been seven months since your last post so I thought I would ask, have you been able to find a position in RA? I have a BA in biology and am looking at a Master's in RA in the hopes of securing a position in regulastory affairs. From what I have been reading in this post it does not look hopeful. Do you have any suggestions?

Sam

Sam in Hackensack, New Jersey said: Susan,
Its been seven months since your last post so I thought I would ask, have you been able to find a position in RA? I have a BA in biology and am looking at a Master's in RA in the hopes of securing a position in regulastory affairs. From what I have been reading in this post it does not look hopeful. Do you have any suggestions?

Sam

The RA industry is tough. Do not believe articles that are describing how wonderful the "job prospects" are for RA. Most of these articles are written many years ago or are by schools. Don't forget, schools want to make money too and are under the guise of education. In fact, most schools will not say anything about how the job prospects for RA are shrinking; the fact that the industry is overloaded with people and not enough jobs. This is fact. They just want your money. An active job shows that RA jobs are few and far between. From first hand experience, most pharma companies are scaling back their RA depts significantly. I don't think a Masters in RA (I didn't even know they had this) is useful in terms of what you will get out of it. Most of RA cannot be taught but rather learned on the job. You might want to consider putting your hard earned dollars into something else.

hey !

I found this thread really helpful as I am also planning to do MS in Regulatory Affairs from San Diego State University which is an online course

I have done my B.Pharmacy and MBA from INDIA and currently on H4 visa.
Is this a good choice to study (MS IN Regulatory Affair) for getting job as well as H1?

I cannot work legally and hence want to study something that fetches H1 easily. IS there some course that can be a good blend of what I have already studied?

Thanks
Hiral