Partnership for Workforce Development in the BioPharmaceutical Industry

Performance Period: 6/1/2018 to 11/30/2019

Lack of regional hands-on training for beginning and existing personnel is a major issue to the biopharmaceutical industry. Students graduate without a skill-set relevant to succeed in industry. The biopharmaceutical industry has identified recruitment of experienced technical staff as their top priority, followed by acquisition, training, and retaining of experienced graduates. While online lectures and materials are valued, it is imperative that lectures are supplemented with local hands-on experiences. Keying on the needs of the biopharmaceutical industry, we designed training and capstone internships with emphasis on GMP, quality and risk analysis, analytical methods, automation, validation, and advanced manufacturing technologies. Lectures are provided in person but videotaping will capture lectures to build an online classroom with refresher and supplemental modules to supplement course and hands-on training. Lectures will be supplemented with a coordinated applied technology class and professional internships at industrial and translational biopharmaceutical science labs with ongoing relevant MRL 4 projects. We leverage networks of existing activities including preparatory introductory biotechnology and med-tech programs at community colleges, GLP/GMP lecture and laboratory courses taught in partnership with Alcami, industry and UNCW MARBIONC summer internships for community college and undergraduates, to build a comprehensive cross-institution program pipelined through a NIST-sponsored public/private building.