How LinkedIn and #BLM Help Fuel Racism in Big Pharma and Biotech

Two friends of mine recently gave me the same advice on how to help my job search in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. I’ve been hesitant to publish this piece, but their advice, paired with the fact that multiple people were giving it, is what tipped the scales. Their counsel was sound and absurd, and yet, I had previously realized that what they suggested would help me in my job search (although I refused to do it out of principle).

Their advice? To remove my LinkedIn photo.

I am an Asian Indian with dark skin and my friends and colleagues knew enough about the pharma industry to understand what that meant: I was basically invisible to pharma recruiters and essentially all-white biotech companies like Nanion, Planet Pharma, Jazz Pharma, Neurocrine, Praxis, and PharmaWrite (now called Woven Health Collective). Check out a few of their teams below. With over 130 employees pictured online, there isn’t a single person with a hint of skin pigment.

It has been called the ‘white mandemic’ in Big Pharma: the tendency for high-paying positions in the pharmaceutical industry to go to ‘white’ males, while women, minorities, and people with pigmented skin aren’t even considered. A 2016 paper highlights the disturbing fact that if people with non-white sounding names were to ‘whiten’ their resume, and make their name sound whiter, they were more likely to get an interview for pharma positions (1). How much worse would this phenomenon be today—in an era where companies no longer need to infer race from a name, thanks to platforms like LinkedIn, which are nearly essential for finding pharma jobs and feature profile pictures?

With a PhD in neuroscience, over a decade of electrophysiology experience, and a neuropharmacology-focused postdoc, I expected to at least have conversations with companies. Instead, after applying to over a hundred positions, I did not receive a single meaningful response. Some rejections came within minutes.

That forced me to take a closer look at the system determining who gets seen—and who doesn’t.

The “White Wall” in Recruiting

Searching “pharma recruiter” on LinkedIn revealed 14-straight pages of essentially all white recruiters (see below). Companies like Planet Pharma, which supply talent to major pharmaceutical companies, appear to play a central gatekeeping role, while they also appeared to lack any diversity.

What better way to keep the pharmaceutical industry predominantly white and restrict high-paying jobs to one group of people than to have zero diversity in those choosing who gets the jobs? 

When recruiters and hiring pipelines lack diversity, the outcome often reflects it. Whether intentional or not, the result is the same: a barrier that limits access for qualified people who don’t fit a narrow profile.

If access to opportunity is filtered, then the composition of that filter matters.

When Qualifications Don’t Translate to Opportunity: The Real Meaning of “Some Industry Experience”

A close friend of mine, with a senior role in industry, helped me bypass this “white wall” of recruiters and connect directly with scientists. I had strong initial conversations with a San Diego-based neuroscience company. The job was for in vivo electrophysiology in mouse models of disease, exactly what I did during my postdoc and PhD, and something I am knowledgeable and passionate about. But within minutes of a Zoom call with a senior scientist, I could read the shift—disengagement, dismissal. Days later, I was told they chose candidates with “some industry experience.” I soon encountered that same phrase again, and I began to see what was so wrong with it. I interviewed with a company called PharmaWrite for a science writing position. I have written scientific articles, grants, over a dozen Abstracts for conferences, and a science-fiction novel (2). I knew this job was something I could excel at. So I submitted a writing sample—an abstract summarizing a large research study—and was told I had “clearly not written an abstract before, because what I wrote was a summary”. I responded, an abstract is a summary and provided references. After some delay, I was told they had selected candidates with “some industry experience.” So by their reasoning, I failed the writing test because I didn’t have “some industry experience”? It didn’t make sense, but there was that phrase again. Oh, you mean I didn’t get past the white wall of recruiters to get my foot in the door? No, I didn’t, and now it made sense why the senior scientist I interviewed with said the same thing. 

If you don’t want to hire someone because of their pigmented skin, just tell them they need “some industry experience” and let the white wall or recruiters and HR people do the rest. Pigmented males like me will never get that industry experience, and pharma companies like PharmaWrite and Neurocrine can keep giving the high-paying, senior jobs, to ‘white’ people. PharmaWrite likely thought I was white because of my American sounding name (which I received after moving to the States), so they let me take the writing test, but when they looked me up on LinkedIn, they saw I had pigmented skin…

There is a pattern becoming clear, is there not? If you can’t get past recruiters, you don’t get industry experience—and if you don’t have industry experience, you don’t get past recruiters. It’s a closed loop. LinkedIn reinforces this loop by making identity immediately visible before ability is even considered.

Patterns Across Companies

Looking across companies like Nanion, Praxis, Neurocrine, Jazz Pharma, Lundbeck and others, I consistently observe a similar pattern:

• leadership teams with little to no visible diversity

• conference presence dominated by white employees

• recruiting pipelines lacking diverse representation

Jazz Pharma is one of many pharma companies I had applied for multiple positions with, without hearing anything back besides a generic rejection letter a couple days after applying. Much of my PhD and postdoc focused on using electrophysiology to study cannabinoid receptor signaling in the brain and its relevance to conditions like epilepsy—and one of Jazz Pharma’s main drugs for epilepsy is the cannabinoid cannabidiol (CBD). I’ve also designed detailed mechanistic frameworks for how multi-compound cannabis-based medicines could modulate neural pathways to alleviate core symptoms associated with autism (3) and epilepsy (4). You’d think they would at least review my application—or have a conversation with me (but they never did).

After many similar experiences applying to jobs I have trained most of my life for and not hearing anything back, it became obvious this wasn’t about qualifications and that I had no hope of getting an interview in Big Pharma. Case-in-point: I recently got in touch with the German company Nanion and inquired about a job with them. Being a life-long electrophysiologist with extensive experience with cell culture and ephys robots made me confidant this would be a job I could excel at. Not to mention I have ideas about how to potentially upgrade their ephys robots and consumables to allow for powerful experiments that are currently not possible with their machines. Considering the top 42 members of Nanion’s team have NO skin pigment, do you think they were open to working with me or even meeting with me after they found out I was Indian and had dark skin, despite my white name? (they weren’t). Here is a link to their team: https://www.nanion.de/about-us/meet-the-team/. Do we think it is an accident that companies like this have no dark-skinned people in the top 40+ people of their company? I’m here to tell you that there are quality candidates out there with skin pigment who are passionately seeking employment with these companies, who at the very least, should be interviewed for positions, but we aren’t even being considered options. I wonder why that is?

Another common behavior, which may reflect a similar discomfort with—or disregard for—those with more visible pigment, is the selective placement of minority employees in highly visible roles or settings, particularly in public-facing environments. For example, several Big Pharma companies have senior employees that are 95% or more white, with a lone African American hired in 2021. Some of the most racist people I ever met pretended to support the BLM movement publicly and then used it like a shield to protect them from future claims they were racist. The lone pigmented people these companies are hiring may be great, and deserve the positions, but is hiring someone because of their race less racist than not hiring them because of it? It’s hard to ignore the pattern of otherwise all-white teams hiring a single African American employee as a visible signal of diversity—something that seems increasingly common in Big Pharma. Public commitments to diversity—especially during movements like #BLM—can be meaningful. But they can also become performative. Hiring a small number of visible minorities, while leaving underlying structures unchanged, risks creating the appearance of progress without expanding access more broadly.

The biotech company Praxis is another company I’ve applied for positions with and never heard anything back from. They have no visible diversity in the top 20 people of their company (as in no skin pigment) yet they have a stock image of an African American woman on the first page of their website (see pic below).

Am I the only one who finds this problematic?

When I was at a recent epilepsy conference I saw a booth with over 20 Big Pharma employees that were all white. When I asked about diversity, I was told there was “an Indian” on the team. Later, I met him. He was the only visibly non-white team member of this company and even then, he had extremely light skin. It raised a difficult question: in an industry where studies have shown candidates may need to “whiten” their resumes just to receive interviews (1), how much does skin tone itself influence who gets considered and who is ultimately accepted? Colorism is not unique to pharma or to the West; it is a well-documented phenomenon across cultures, and it makes me wonder if international companies are run by lighter-skinned individuals who all look down on (or ignore) people with skin pigment.

Across multiple conferences and company profiles, I see the same structure repeated: overwhelmingly white teams, occasionally punctuated by a single minority hire. On paper, that may satisfy a notion of diversity. In practice, it often feels more like signaling than inclusion.

I want to be clear: the individuals hired into these roles may be highly qualified and deserving. The issue is not their presence—it’s the pattern. When diversity appears in isolated, highly visible forms, it raises the question of whether people are being integrated as colleagues or positioned as symbols. And when that happens, people are no longer being included—they’re being displayed. So please Big Pharma, don’t blast us with a bunch of posts depicting African Americans hired in the past 3 years, to tell us how wrong we are. We’ve seen your LinkedIn and are well aware you hired a couple African Americans (and then felt the need to brag about it to the world with a BLM hashtag). Show us a founding member with skin pigment or one hired before 2021 and we’ll rethink our position.

I had a co-worker who was one of our sales reps and he’s told me stories of nearly all-white companies he visited parading around their one employee with pigmented skin and talking about how diverse it was there. He said on one occasion the poor African man was visibly uncomfortable as they showcased him around. Occurrences like this are far too common—and not remotely acceptable. People with skin pigment deserve better. We all deserve better. We should be seen and hired for who we are as people, not made visible or invisible based on the color of our skin.

Individually, these observations might not mean much.

Together, they begin to form an ugly pattern.

Diversity Without Equity and the Illusion of Inclusion

I did eventually find a job in the neuroscience and biotech industry, although I had to reach out to senior scientists directly before hearing anything back—once again bypassing the white wall of recruiters. However, the all-white senior members of the company fought to keep my salary under $78k after taxes while I was living in Boston, an incredibly expensive city. They also only permitted me to occupy the lowest rung of the company. I have noticed that this is a common theme in Big Pharma and similar environments: predominantly white senior teams hiring a small number of individuals with skin pigment, keeping them at the bottom of the hierarchy, underpaying them relative to their contributions, and relying heavily on their labor.

So don’t mistake diversity for equality.

I was eventually let go from that role after raising concerns about workload and compensation. At the time, I was supporting a dozen customers, traveling to give personalized talks and demos with live cells and electrophysiology systems, writing reports, maintaining cell culture, designing and running my own experiments, and presenting data at conferences. When I explained that I was stretched too thin and effectively doing the work of multiple people, my supervisor told me I was actually doing the work of “half a person,” and outlined a plan to increase my workload while denying a raise.

That moment clarified the situation.

The company’s leadership and senior team were entirely white. They were willing to hire a person with skin pigment to take on extensive work and generate value, but not to compensate them fairly, recognize them as an equal, or invest in their advancement. The pattern was clear.

So I left and decided to try and build something different. We hire based on expertise, experience, education, and heart—not skin pigment. It’s no surprise that our team already reflects more diversity than many of the companies I’ve mentioned. If bias is not embedded at the core, diversity doesn’t need to be manufactured—it emerges naturally.

Beyond Slogans: From Recognition to Genuine Acceptance

Something about Black Lives Matter and Asian Lives Matter feels incomplete to me. Why are we saying those lives matter? That’s basically the lowest level of recognition to give a person or group of people. Saying that someone’s life “matters” is fundamental; the deeper question is whether that recognition translates into how people actually think, behave, and relate to one another. Black lives mattered to slave owners too—free labor born of sweat, tears, and blood mattered quite a bit. A better slogan would have been Black Lives Are Loved. Now we have something prejudiced people might be less willing to agree with. In my experience, public expressions of support don’t always reflect deeper acceptance—whether in how people form relationships, build trust, or see others as equals in a meaningful way. There is a reason Alexander the Great encouraged his Greek soldiers to take Persian brides once he had conquered the Persian Empire. It showed the Persians that they were equals—not barbarians as they were commonly referred to in Greece—nor subjugated slaves or second-class citizens. It made clear the Greeks saw beauty in their ancient race and culture. Greeks weren’t going around saying ‘Persian Lives Matter’ and transiently pretending to care about them. They made Persians part of their family and brought them into their inner circles. Do we think everyone supporting #BLM is doing this with African Americans (or anyone with dark skin)?

People often point to movements like #BLM as evidence of progress. But public expressions of support don’t always translate into structural change. True inclusion is not about statements or optics—it’s about who gets hired, who gets promoted, and who gets heard.

Conclusion: A System Due for Change

I am sure this piece is not going to make me any friends in the pharma industry and will essentially close the door on my job search, but I would rather dig ditches with a diverse team of good-natured people, than fight for scraps from the table of all-white pharma companies. I’m sure people from the biotech and pharma companies I’ve mentioned are going to have something to say, but if you are the CEO or senior scientist of an all-white company, you can’t tell me anything, because you don’t see things as they are, you see things as you are (and that’s nothing good).

All the racism I observe and experience has become like a splinter in my mind. Maybe I’ll be able to focus on my business and family a little better once I get all these thoughts out. These companies need to be called out for their racist practices. Maybe then, in time, people with pigmented skin won’t have to ‘whiten’ their resumes and remove their profile picture to hear back about jobs they could excel at. Now that I finally have “some industry experience” do you think it has helped me in my job search? Of course it hasn’t, because I’m still not white, and that is what really matters. For a positive change to take place, we need more than a transient social media movement. People need to realize that being white doesn’t make you better than anyone else and those with dark skin can be just as beautiful, intelligent, and capable as those without. We need to stop supporting nearly all-white Big Pharma companies who are now clever enough to showcase the only skin pigment at their company in social media posts and put a bunch of stock images of pigmented people smiling on their website, so you quickly look the other way. These companies need to go the way of the dinosaur. We can replace them with companies built by diverse and imaginative teams that care about the health and well-being of others—companies that aim to enrich lives rather than squeeze money from them. Dear Jazz Pharma, PharmaWrite, Planet Pharma, Neurocrine, Nanion, Lundbeck, Praxis, and all of biotech: It’s pigment, not poison.

References

1.     Kang, S. K., DeCelles, K. A., Tilcsik, A., & Jun, S. (2017). Whitened résumés: Race and self-presentation in the labor market. Administrative Science Quarterly, 61(3), 469–502. https://doi.org/10.1177/0001839216639577

2.     Jensen, K. R. (2016). An Evolution of Minds. Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Minds-K-R-Jensen-ebook/dp/B01LDLRUPW

3.     Jensen, K. R. (2026). Supporting Cognitive Flexibility in Autism: Mechanistic Insights into Cannabinoid–Terpene Interactions. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202604.0408.v2

4.     Jensen,  K. R. (2026). Modulating Neural Excitability in Epilepsy: A Systems-Level Perspective on Cannabinoid–Terpene Signaling. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202604.1340.v1