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October 2017 Featured Report
A student practices laboratory techniques in a 2015 BARDA Fundamentals course conducted through the Biomanufacturing Training and Education Center (BTEC). (WWW.BTEC.NCSU.EDU)
Today’s bioprocessing technicians are highly skilled professionals who can operate large automated equipment, juggle numerous support activities, and document manufacturing deviations. In coming years, their jobs will become even more rigorous as companies push more decision-making to the production floor to save time and resources. With the trend toward smaller batches made in bench-scale and/or single-use equipment, this strategy becomes easier to implement. One way to foster improved decision-making on the production floor is to hire or promote employees who understand the basic scientific principles underlying a bioprocess. What abilities and skills does the workforce of the future need to make the best decisions? And how can that workforce be developed?
A Changing Paradigm
The typical biomanufacturing company advances a drug sub...
One major challenge facing the global bioindustry today is finding talented individuals to work in the type of highly skilled interdisciplinary environments necessary for effective bioprocess development. Ideally, such individuals require a combination of technical knowledge and expertise spanning biological sciences, physical sciences, mathematics, and engineering. Numerous industry surveys have repeatedly stressed the lack of suitably trained individuals equipped with necessary skills to work at the biology−engineering interface to meet the growing and changing demands of industry.
The challenge is in fact two-fold: The need to secure a sufficient pipeline of skilled individuals entering the bioprocess industries while simultaneously supporting the existing, experienced workforce with updates on new trends, technologies, and methodologies – and including programs to repurpose skills as businesses move into new therapy areas. To address the latter challenge, several training programs have been created at...
The BIotech Training Facility in the Leiden Bioscience Park, the Netherlands (PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BIOTECH TRAINING FACILITY)
At the April meeting of the BPI International Summit (25−26 April 2017) delegates were treated to a tour of a new training facility. The Biotech Training Facility is about a 20-minute drive from the Amsterdam airport and located in the Leiden Bioscience Park. The park houses companies that employ ~18,000 life science workers. In addition, the Leiden University and the Leiden Academic Medical Center complement the dynamic high-tech environment that facilitates establishment of such a knowledge and experience center as this facility. The Biotech Training Facility opened its doors in February of 2016 and already has established itself as a source for training a new and continuing biopharmaceutical workforce.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Ronald Kompier, managing director of the facility. He brings experiences from 30 years in the life sciences in diverse activities involving re...
The National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL) was launched in March 2017 as a cooperative agreement with the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), part of the US Department of Commerce.
NIIMBL
is one of the newest members of Manufacturing USA, a network of manufacturing innovation institutes through which industry, academia, and government work together to accelerate implementation of advanced manufacturing and develop a trained workforce in several key sectors of ththe US economy.
NIIMBL’s mission is to accelerate innovation in biopharmaceutical manufacturing, support the development of standards to enable more efficient and rapid manufacturing capabilities, and educate and train a world-leading workforce to support an industry sector that is supplying medicines for patients around the globe. NIIMBL is a catalyst for innovation that leverages the resources of small, medium, and large companies as well as academic institutions, government laboratori...
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