Gender parity in medical device and pharmaceuticals

7 Mar, 2019

Ted Coss of BEC Search explores the issue of gender parity and how to address it.

Women are significantly outnumbered by men in medical device sales, and they aren’t paid equally. In fact, 70 percent of the respondents in the 2018 Medical Sales Salary Report were men.  The report also stated that women earn just 81 percent of what men do, a decrease of 2 percent from the prior year.  This discrepancy is attributable to position; women hold only 15 percent of the highest paying job titles.

We also have a long way to go in the pharmaceutical industry, although it can be argued that there is some progress being made.  Seb Burchell, of Assured Pharmacy, has been digging into the data and found that of the 133 people on executive leadership teams across the world’s top ten pharma companies, just 34, or 22 percent, are women.  GSK is the only one among them with a female CEO, and while there are 116 directors on the ten boards of directors, just 34, or 29 percent, are female.

We’ve got a lot of work to do.

The case for parity was made, and solutions offered, in an article, Top Women in Healthcare Talk Gender Parity, published by PM360, a journal for pharmaceutical marketers, in April 2018:  “Equal rights for women, particularly in the workplace, are taking on a heightened urgency as highly talented and competent women are still—consciously or unconsciously—not perceived to offer the same value as their male counterparts, who predominantly hold the reigns when it comes to pay and upward mobility within an organization,” the article stated.

PM360 tapped 12 top women in healthcare to share their views on gender parity in the workplace.  I think Rayona Sharpnack, Founder & CEO of the Institute for Gender Partnership and Women’s Leadership, Inc., made an excellent point when she said, “Virtually no executive I have ever spoken to thinks he is the one keeping women in his company’s lower ranks. In fact, most male leaders are well-intentioned, conscientious guys doing the best they can to treat everyone the same. They don’t realize they are failing at it.”

I find these comments to be insightful and eye opening.  I count myself among the ranks of those “well-intentioned, conscientious guys,” and for that reason we as an industry need to be focused on continued progress.

I’ll leave you with a final thought from Nancy Miller-Rich, CEO of Nth Degree Biotech. “Everyone brings biases into their workplace. Unconscious bias affects hiring, promotions, and compensation. If left unchecked this bias has the potential to unknowingly shape an organization’s culture and limit it from achieving its potential. Organizations need to authentically look inward to understand if unconscious bias is impacting their culture and business results.”

Here at BEC Search, we are committed to gender parity and to working with our partners, both companies and candidates, to move the needle.