From Brainchild to BLIMP

I have had the privilege to work for biotech and pharma companies across the country, from Baltimore to the Bay Area, and for the most part there was one consistency that I saw—very few people of color, and more specifically, very little Black and Latino representation. This may seem like a strange element to point out, but I would argue that the racial make-up of a company is a detail that people notice rather quickly (especially people of color).

This isn’t a secret! There is an increasing amount of data being published around the demographics of biopharma companies, from the amount of racial and ethnic representation at junior levels to the number of women and non-White CEOs at the helms of these companies. Needless to say, these numbers are not a true reflection of diversity in the real world.

As cliché as it sounds, I’ve always been from the school of thought that we each have a responsibility to make positive changes in the spaces we occupy. And so, BLIMP began! Initially, I thought it would be good to reach out to my immediate network of pharmacists and pharmacy students, but I quickly learned that BLIMP’s reach should, and would, far surpass my “pharmily.”

As BLIMP grew from a few dozen pharmacy school classmates to hundreds of students and professionals ranging from undergraduate students to MBA grads and physicians looking for opportunities in and around biopharma, I knew BLIMP was a platform that was very much needed, and very much missing.