Women's Slow — but Steady — Gains in Biotech's Upper Ranks

Slate's Jill Priluck says that "the higher rates of women-founded biotech firms are impressive only in comparison to other high-tech fields," as they comprise "only 12 percent of all founders, even though they are about half of the PhDs." Still, Priluck notes, women have made gains in biotech's ranks, in part because they "benefit from the biotech industry's less hierarchical, team-based structure." In addition, Boston University's Laurel Smith-Doerr has found that "women are nearly eight times more likely to run independent labs in biotech firms than in more traditional settings like universities and large pharmaceutical companies," Priluck reports, adding that female biotech employees submit patents at the same rate as men.