Biotechnology is a vaguely defined field that for the most part focuses on new biological discoveries and their applications to commercial products. Life science industries also often are lumped into this category. The biotech field, according to Ginny Orndorff, director of technology development at Boulder's NexStar Pharmaceuticals Inc. was not always so male oriented. There were just as many women as men and there was no discrimination. As the industry became more established and people realized there was money to be made, more men, particularly from the pharmaceutical industry, joined the biotech field.
Management is male dominated.
Biotech now is more traditional and like the pharmaceutical industry, which is very male dominated and sexist. It is a different situation now. Yet Orndorff doesn't attribute the old boy's club nature of the biotech industry to sex discrimination, rather she attributes it to men being used to working with men and hiring their friends and relations. As a result, while women were present in the early stages of the industry, as the field expanded, the number of women didn't. Even though Ayers comes from a business and accounting background, being a woman has largely been a non-issue for her.