The biopharmaceutical manufacturing industry continues to experience rapid growth, yet the availability of a skilled and readily trained workforce continues to be a challenge. PhRMA continues to acknowledge the "growing U.S. skills gap" in pharmaceuticals, forecasting that two million positions will go unfilled between 2015 and 2025, primarily due to STEM talent shortages. Further exacerbating this problem, traditional chemical and biomedical engineering degree programs do not provide graduates with targeted and hands-on experience operating bioprocess and analytical equipment. Instead, on-the-job training is often required to teach these skills, greatly diminishing productivity and increasing expense to the company, and even more so if training requires equipment to be taken out of service or results in errors on the line.
Military service members – including military veterans, transitioning service members, and military spouses – represent a significant and underutilized talent pipeline for the biopharma manufacturing industry. Instilled throughout the framework of military service is a strong sense of responsibility, professionalism, dedication to accomplishing a mission, ability to innovate and identify solutions to challenging and demanding work environments, a “do it right the first time” work ethic, teamwork where the results of all are greater than the results of one, integrity, and a sense of purpose in “serving something bigger than yourself.” This project aimed to elevate the preparedness of service members for careers in the biopharma by linking their readily transferable soft skills with targeted technical training. Compared to other industries, this connection and sense of purpose provides a unique competitive advantage to reach and engage service members.
Increase industry awareness among transitioning military service members and veterans, provide defined technical training in bioprocessing and biomanufacturing, and strengthen the available pipeline of skilled talent for NIIMBL partner companies.
This program delivers an innovative approach to supplement our workforce talent pipeline by designing and deploying broader marketing strategies and training programs to engage, train, and employ service members. Executing and delivering this project as a NIIMBL collaborative promotes synergies across geographies to drive greater efficiencies in marketing strategies, cohort training, and the sharing of best practices to broaden partnerships across all military branches.
OUTPUTS Harmonized training programs located at National Center for Therapeutics Manufacturing, Central Carolina Community College, and Durham Tech Community College to ensure program similarity/consistency, as well as vetting program content with Merck and Pfizer for their endorsement. Participants of cohorts learned fundamental biopharmaceutical techniques and processes including: Working Safely and current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) Measurements, Metrics, Unit Operations, and Documentation Process Flows, Technology, and Equipment Analytical Techniques and Maintaining Quality Aseptic Processing, Fermentation, and Cell Growth Harvest, Filtration, and Purification NCBiotech developed a comprehensive marketing and recruitment program, including brochures, videos, a registration website, etc.; performed extensive outreach to veteran?s advocacy organizations, military bases, etc. Delivered 5 training cohorts ? totaling more than 630 contact training hours ? serving 41 participants from across the nation Organized presentations and pre-interviews with participants and veteran employees of Merck and Pfizer Identified potential employment opportunities for program completers, made introductions and supported them through the application process Performed an after-action-review and developed a post-project summary, including best practices and possibilities for sustainability
Military Service Members in Biopharma Manufacturing (MSMBM) (PC3.1-207), NIIMBL Member Forum, Virtual, September 23, 2021.
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Texas A&M University System
Central Carolina Community College
Durham Technical Community College
Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC
North Carolina Biotechnology Center
Pfizer, Inc.
