Between 1964 and 1978 Regine Radischewski worked in a management position involving Quality Control in the pharmacology department of VEB Berlin-Chemie, a major conglomerate in East Berlin. Hildebrandt combined her responsibilities in the pharmaceuticals department with a medicines research project at the Humboldt University which led to her receiving her doctorate in 1978. In 1978 she took a senior research position at Berlin's Centre for the Study of Metabolism Illnesses and Diabetes, heading up the Diabetes department until 1990. During this period she had numerous research papers published.