On March 6, 2019, I had the opportunity to visit the Ethicon campus in Somerville, NJ, which was built in 1956. Our visit began with a warm welcome from Denise Fuzak, Senior Director of Strategy Development and Deployment, who is also a Rutgers engineering graduate! Ethicon is a subdivision of the Johnson & Johnson company that was incorporated in 1949. The name comes from their mantra Ethical and Confidence. Ethicon has been dedicated to manufacturing sutures and wound closure devices since 1887. They are dedicated to addressing the world’s most critical healthcare issues such as 1) increasing health care costs, 2) limited access to healthcare, 3) high complication rates and mortality, and 4) high co-morbidities. Their Vision is to shape the future of surgery and their Mission is to advance innovation in surgery. Ethicon is leading the global surgery market. They are #1 in Endocutters, Wound Closures, Biosurgery and #2 in Energy.
After the introduction about Ethicon, we had the opportunity to meet 7 employees of the company. They shared with us their experiences on how they got to Ethicon, and how it has been since. They advised that interpersonal skills are important. You will be working with other people constantly in teams and communicating with different departments. Knowing how to have good communication and “people” skills are important for this type of job. Cultural awareness and adaptability are also important. They mentioned it’s important to have experience in the clinical scene, or at least being familiar with it because it takes time to grow in that type of business. For example, the opportunity of making site visits, for example through iJOBS, to companies, will help you get familiarized if you have never had experience in the industry. Site visits also give you a chance to network, which is really important in both academia and industry. Another topic of discussion was Ethicon’s belief in understanding the medical needs of patients, and not simply the technology. Is important to Ethicon to be up-to-date with what is needed in the medical community, with what will be practical and useful, One piece of advice was to always keep in mind that the skills that you are learning are broader than the specific topic you are researching. After the panel talk, we were given a tour of the facilities where we got to see in detail the microbiology laboratory and the packaging and development department. Dr. Aamani Rupakula, who did her postdoc in the Microbiology Department at Rutgers, gave us the tour of the microbiology facilities. Dr. Rupakula mentioned she knew she was interested in working in an industry, so while at Rutgers she took advantage of the iJobs program to help her transition from academia to industry. The microbiology workgroup is composed of 4 people that are dedicated to model development, testing sterility of their products, and testing antimicrobial coatings. Afterward, we went to the packing and development department. There, John Stanley gave us a tour and explained to us what types of tests they do to their packages to ensure that they can support high pressures, water or filtering. At the end of the tour, we had a networking session with some of the company’s employees. I got a chance to talk to NancySehgel, who is also a Rutgers’ alumni from the Biomedical Engineering Department, who now works in the Preclinical Department at Ethicon! She also mentioned that taking advantage of the iJobs site visits and panels helped her familiarize a little bit more with the industry scene. The Senior Director ended this visit with this phrase about their company: “We blend Heart, Science, and Ingenuity to profoundly change the trajectory of health for humanity.” Our next site visit will be to the Institute of Life Science Entrepreneurship on May 2, 2019. Check out the iJOBS website for upcoming events. 
Thanks to Jennifer Casiano and Monal Mehta for editing this document.
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