Biotech layoffs ease, but promotion gaps linger for women in STEM

Biopharma hiring is stabilizing after a brutal 2025, but industry veteran Pamela Gardner says the recovery is creating a quieter promotion problem. Gardner argues women who carried teams through cuts are still being overlooked as companies restart advancement decisions.

Why it matters: - Biopharma layoffs are easing, but the recovery may leave a new bottleneck: the people who kept teams running during cuts may not be the ones getting promoted. - That risk matters for women in STEM, who already face lower promotion rates and fewer high-visibility opportunities. - The pattern can slow retention, limit leadership pipelines and push experienced talent out of the industry.

What happened: - Seventeen companies announced layoffs between April and June, about half as many as in the first quarter and far below the 64 announcements in the same period a year earlier, according to an analysis of Fierce Biotech data. - Over 2025, 17 pharmaceutical companies with at least $20 billion in annual revenue cut more than 22,000 positions combined. - Pamela Gardner, founder and CEO of Biotech Vendor Services, says the hiring recovery is restarting promotion conversations across life sciences. - Gardner also coaches mid-stage women in STEM on moving into visible leadership roles.

The details: - Gardner has spent 23 years running events where life sciences companies meet suppliers at research institutes and biopharma sites across the country. - Gardner said women often absorb extra work during layoffs and then get labeled indispensable when hiring returns, which can become a ceiling instead of recognition. - Gardner said she has watched who gets heard in meetings and who leaves the industry years later, and those people are often the same. - McKinsey and LeanIn.Org data show that for every 100 men promoted to manager, 93 women are promoted and 74 women of color are promoted. - Research in life sciences has linked slower advancement for women to less sponsorship, fewer high-visibility assignments and more nonpromotable work such as coordination, mentoring and committee service. - Gardner said the women she works with are usually not underperforming; they are overloaded. - Gardner runs The Art of Women Thriving in STEM, a program built around three shifts: being free to be yourself, stopping the spinning plates, and being happy now. - Gardner received the 2019 Athena Pinnacle Award and a 2021 San Diego Business Journal Business Women of the Year award. - Gardner was also recognized as one of the San Diego Business Journal's 2021 500 Most Influential People in the Health & Science category. - More information is available at the company website.

Between the lines: - The layoff cycle may be ending, but the organizational habits formed during crisis can linger after headcount stabilizes. - Gardner's warning is not about performance alone; it is about visibility, sponsorship and who gets chosen when management starts making upward moves again. - The biggest risk is that the employees who carried the recovery work will stay in place while others advance.

What's next: - Companies are expected to continue restarting promotion decisions as they move out of survival mode. - Gardner says women who led through the cuts need to put themselves into those conversations now. - If the pattern holds, biopharma could see a recovery in hiring without a matching recovery in advancement equity.

The bottom line: - Biopharma layoffs are cooling, but the promotion gap may be the next leadership problem.