By Billy James
Most, if not all of you, will have never heard of Pharmaron. Neither had I, till I applied for a placement in their Formulation Development Team.
A little context
I first came across Pharmaron when looking for placements back in September 2021. A lecture entitled “Drug Formulation” had sparked my interest in the first few weeks of term, so when I came across Pharmaron’s “Formulation Development” placement I applied straight away.
In preparation for interviews I did a little research into the company and found out they were a CDMO, or contract development and manufacturing organisation. Essentially, Pharmaron take on client contracts for anything ranging from drug discovery all the way through to manufacturing drug product for clinical trials.
My Placement
The placement itself was a 12-month stint within the formulation development team at the company’s site in Hoddesdon (I still wouldn’t be able to point this out to you on a map!). During the year, I was exposed to and involved in much more than I expected. If, like me, you expected a year of photocopying and running errands, then think again.
I couldn’t believe how soon I was thrown in the deep end! The CDMO work environment is very dynamic, any minute a client can email in a request to change or add to a contract and then its all hands on deck to get the work done. After only a few weeks of training (and reading lots of documentation), I was straight into helping my supervisor with the production of a batch of tablets for stability testing. And that was only the start.
Some examples of things I did while on placement include: qualification of fridges, freezers and digital clocks (yes, even clocks have to qualified in a GMP environment), production of stability batches (many, many tablets and capsules), installation and set up of new automatic balances (terrifyingly expensive pieces of kit) and completing a case study for the team.
The case study
Case studies are carried out on topics the team have little experience in or to show off their expertise to potential clients.
A case study I was asked to complete while on placement looked at tablet coatings. Specifically, the team wanted to learn more about (and show clients we knew about) titanium dioxide free coatings and how they compared to regular, titanium dioxide containing coatings. I won’t bore you with the legislative details, but to make a long story short, the EU may ban this compound from tablet coatings. This would be a bad thing as it would mean many drug shortages and discontinuations, as it has many very useful properties. Other compounds with similar properties simply do not exist.
I was given free reign on how to complete the case study, which gave me a real sense of pride as the team felt confident enough in my abilities to complete this important piece of work for them. Completing the case study also gave me an excellent piece of work to write my Placement Report on.
Another opportunity which arose from completing this case study was submitting a poster and abstract to the APS (Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences) to present at their annual PharmSci conference.
APS and PharmSci
After completing my case study and placement report, and as my placement was coming to an end, my supervisor suggested submitting an abstract and poster of my work to the APS for their PharmSci annual conference.
I thought this was an amazing opportunity which I couldn’t pass up on, so in the last few days of my placement I worked hard to prepare both a poster and abstract detailing the work we had completed on the case study.
To my surprise, both were accepted for presentation at the conference, and the abstract was also selected for an oral presentation (at the time this terrified me, but I soon realised it was an amazing opportunity)!
Attending the (all expenses paid!) conference was truly the highlight of my year, and being able to present the work I had spent many months on was an extremely proud moment.
I can’t recommend doing a placement enough, irrespective of if it involves lab work, office work or a combination of the two, it really is a fantastic and formative experience. Not only do you get paid (usually quite well!) for a year, but you also learn and are exposed to so many new things which could eventually be what you decide to do when you leave university.
If you are in two minds over doing a placement or not, take this as a sign to go for it!
You won’t regret it!