Triangle drug-testing companies are hiring

With their services increasingly in demand, Triangle companies that help drug makers test new medicines are hiring like mad.

Some employees at smaller contract research organizations are being snatched up by larger competitors that can afford to pay more. But salaries across the board are beginning to creep up -- a CRO employee with one or two years of experience in setting up clinical trial sites can expect to be paid $60,000 per year. And recruiting companies are busier than ever trying to attract the best, most experienced people for clients itching to hire.

"It's a war for talent," said Brandon Jones, head recruiter for the CRO industry at Aerotek Scientific's Raleigh office.

Contract research organizations are booming nationwide. And the effects of that boom are acute in the Triangle, home to one of the highest concentrations of such groups in the country.

The frenzy is led by Quintiles Transnational, which is building a new headquarters in Durham. The world's largest CRO is winning ever-bigger contracts -- including one worth $500 million -- from pharmaceutical companies that are outsourcing more of their research and drug testing. To handle the bounty, Quintiles is doubling its local headcount to 2,000.

Work is also piling up at smaller CROs, such as Rho Inc. On Tuesday, the Chapel Hill company announced it has added more than 100 jobs in the past three years and is expanding services. Rho now employs 350, about 300 of them in the Triangle.

"Continued growth is on the horizon," said Russ Helms, Rho's chief technology officer.

Coming to the Triangle

What's driving the phenomenon is a pharmaceutical industry struggling to fend off generic competition and create new medicines. By bidding out more work to contract research organizations, large drug makers hope to cut costs and shift the risk of meeting stricter regulatory scrutiny.

Late-stage clinical trials, the most expensive and complex part of drug development, increasingly are done by contract research organizations, said Jones of Aerotek.

To fulfill the steady stream of larger and larger contracts, many contractors are specializing the tasks of employees, adding workers and moving operations where they can find trained labor.

In September, PRA International announced it would move its corporate headquarters to Raleigh from Virginia and hire nearly 500 over four years. Array Biopharma, a Colorado company that develops cancer drugs, followed suit in February, saying it is opening an office to test new medicines in Morrisville.

INC Research, which employs about 1,300, including 400 at its headquarters in Raleigh, just laid off about 30 to streamline operations. But INC remained committed to creating 1,100 jobs by 2011, a pledge it made in October.

Aerotek's Jones said he doesn't see an end to the expansion of the industry any time soon.

"The forecast looks pretty stable for the next three to four years," he said.