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High school program aims to groom future engineers
Ohanian Comment: Unfortunately, the reporter believes what Abbott Laboratories tells her.
I looked for posting of entry-level engineering positions at Abbott in Illinois since Jan. 1, 08. Zero.
Searching for entry-level engineering positions at Abbott in the U.S. yielded two: one in Worcester,MA and one in Dallas, TX.
One might want to look at Abbott's claims to want "more and more engineers," in light of the rampant outsourcing in the industry. Here's one article of interest, from Chemical & Engineering News, Volume 80, Number 7
CENEAR 80 7 pp. 80-82 (the cover story):
OUTSOURCING 101
Outsourcing is about relationships; when managed properly, both clients and vendors win
A. Maureen Rouhi
Douglas G. Johnson is the senior director for manufacturing at Allos Therapeutics, a Denver-based pharmaceutical company founded to develop a compound called RSR 13 for therapeutic uses. The company has no labs, much less large-scale reactors. Its supply of RSR 13 comes from Hovione, a chemical company that manufactures the active pharmaceutical ingredient at its facilities in Loures, Portugal, on the outskirts of Lisbon.
Thousands of miles and several time zones separate Denver and Loures. But the relationship, which began in April 1997, when RSR 13 was only in Phase I clinical trials, remains strong and highly valued by both parties. RSR 13 is now in Phase III clinical trials for the treatment of cancers that have spread to the brain. The manufacturing aspects of drug development have been validated and are ready for submission to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration.
As the pace of drug discovery continues to quicken, more and more promising leads will fall by the wayside if the discoverers rely only on established pharmaceutical companies for development. With custom service providers for every conceivable aspect of drug development, anyone can develop a lead to a commercial product with minimal capital. The Allos-Hovione partnership for manufacturing is a success story, but both parties say there have been rough spots along the way.
Learning to minimize those rough spots in customer-vendor relationships was one of the goals of "Outsourcing Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing," a conference organized by the Center for Business Intelligence and held last December in Alexandria, Va. At a preconference workshop, Johnson and John D. Richards, vice president of manufacturing and product quality at Cambridge, Mass.-based Medicines Co. (MDCO), shared their experiences working in pharmaceutical companies without fixed assets--so-called virtual companies. Both described what they seek in outsourcing partners.
Beyond the right fit for chemistry, technology, regulatory compliance, and other special expertise, a vendor's readiness to collaborate ranks high with companies like MDCO, which specializes in taking drugs in advanced stages of development to full commercialization. Without any in-house labs or manufacturing, analytical, or development facilities, it took over the development of the anticoagulant Angiomax from Phase III clinical trials to commercialization. Angiomax had been discovered by Biogen, a Cambridge-based biopharmaceutical company.
But Biogen at the time was focused on pushing another biopharmaceutical product to commercialization, and Angiomax was shelved, Richards explained.
In 1997, MDCO licensed Angiomax from Biogen. MDCO stayed with Biogen's manufacturer of Angiomax, UCB-Bioproducts S.A., "because of their willingness to build a relationship," Richards tells C&EN. "Together we developed a new process for Angiomax."
DEVELOPMENT AT MDCO includes work on a biotherapeutic agent called CTV05, a live organism that can be used to help treat bacterial imbalance in the vaginal tract. MDCO licensed it from a small company with no infrastructure and had to find a manufacturer to produce it.
Richards couldn't divulge the manufacturer of CTV05. But about MDCO's approach in choosing outsourcing partners, he said, "We want contract manufacturers that are interested in building a relationship with us." Unlike the big pharmaceutical companies, he continued, "we don't have a big stick to make contract manufacturers want to work with us. A relationship ensures that we can achieve our goals through them."
Responsiveness or vendor care is a trait that Allos seeks in outsourcing partners. "It's a very subjective characteristic," Johnson said. "If you feel that a vendor will not care about your project, you might as well leave. You won't even have a honeymoon."
As an example of vendor care and responsiveness, Johnson described how Hovione diverted a piece of equipment headed for another facility to Loures after they determined--and Allos agreed--that it would improve the manufacture of RSR 13. "This happened just as we were about to start process validations," he said. "At [Hovione's] own initiative, they found a critical piece of equipment, installed it immediately, validated it, and got that all done in four weeks so that we could still do our process validation in time. And they didn't charge us for it."
"As a company, we would have been very foolish not to have done that for Allos," David Hoffman, president of Hovione's U.S. operations, tells C&EN.With worldwide annual sales of about $60 million, Hovione finds companies like Allos Therapeutics to be ideal clients. "That they were interested in the manufacture of an active pharmaceutical ingredient rather than just an intermediate put them on the front for us," Hoffman says. Allos also was willing to give Hovione a long-term commitment.
"SOME CUSTOMERS prefer to be one-sided, wanting all the services, as well as the flexibility to take the project in-house or to retain manufacturing rights," Hoffman explains. Such customers are not there for the long haul.
Finally, Allos "values our services and recognizes and appreciates our value," Hoffman says. "With large pharmaceutical companies, we are just a provider of goods. With Allos, we are an active participant. It doesn't mean that we don't work with big pharma. We do. But the relationship is different."
At the conference proper, speakers addressed the nitty-gritty of outsourcing. Sean Sullivan, manager for Good Manufacturing Practices Quality Assurance at Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Cheshire, Conn., was one of the attendees. Alexion has biopharmaceutical products in clinical trials and currently contracts all the manufacturing for these trials. "My job has become primarily about interacting with these contractors," he told C&EN. "I was very interested in how other people are managing those relationships."
Although many speakers came from a biopharmaceutical manufacturing perspective, the principles they emphasized could be applied to any work to be outsourced. For example, before any work can be outsourced, a company must first evaluate the soundness of such a decision.
Susan Dexter, vice president of business development for biopharmaceutical contract manufacturing services at Dow Chemical, noted that biopharmaceutical manufacturing is more complex than chemical manufacturing. Therefore, scaling up biopharmaceutical production is a bigger undertaking. Nevertheless, the same steps for decision-making apply: Evaluate the resources needed to scale up in-house versus outsourcing production, carry out cost-benefit analysis, and compare the scenarios.
ONCE THE DECISION to outsource is made, the next step is to find the right partner. On this subject, James A. Wilkins, president of BioLogic LLC, a consulting firm based in Woodbridge, Conn., emphasized that the right partner depends on the development stage of the product. At the preclinical stage, the manufacture is open to a lot of flexibility. But as the product moves along in development, regulatory restrictions and production costs kick in. Close to launch, the ability of the contract manufacturer to produce the projected demand becomes critical. "Virtual" pharmaceutical companies may be best served by full-service providers, Wilkins said. But companies with more in-house capabilities might be better off picking and choosing specific partners for specific projects.
On top of these considerations, the customer must carefully consider other issues that come up with outsourcing. For example, David E. Shuey, CEO and president of Willis of Maryland, a provider of insurance and risk management services, pointed out that outsourcing creates new exposure to risks to a company's human, financial, operational, integrity, and intellectual capital, and he suggested ways to protect these assets.
And of course, there's the manufacturing contract. Full conferences are held on this topic alone. Joseph E. Tyler, vice president for operations at Salix Pharmaceuticals, Raleigh, N.C., emphasized the need for any contract to stand the test of time and to be flexible enough to accommodate changes. The contract should clearly indicate how the process will be managed, he said.
For any contract manufacturing arrangement, be sure to have a quality-control agreement, said Martin Van Trieste, vice president for quality assurance at Abbott Laboratories Hospital Products Division. Among other points, the agreement includes a list of key contacts and defines who will be responsible for tasks that affect product quality, quality systems pertaining to the product, and regulatory compliance related to the product. For best results, he said, keep the language simple and straightforward, and update the agreement annually.
Once all the paperwork is in place, the real work begins. When the contract is for manufacturing, a transfer of technology usually takes place between the customer and the manufacturer. "That's when the pedal hits the metal," said Cathy Smith, manager of manufacturing business development for Chiron Corp., Emeryville, Calif.
Smith offered contractors several tricks to ease technology transfer: Observe the process at the client's facility, clearly define product and process sensitivities up front, scale up from similar process equipment with known scale factors, and check all sources of process information.
When it's time to do full-scale test runs, make sure the client is on-site for rapid troubleshooting. And finally, Smith said, when the technology transfer has been certified a success, be sure to get the client and contractor teams together to celebrate.
High school program aims to groom future engineers
By Tara Malone
Nikala Wickstrom frowned at the airplane image rotating across her computer screen, glanced down at toy model parts stacked beside her and then back again. Click by click, the Warren High School freshman built an online replica of the wood airplane she found in her home basement.
She measured each wing, wheel and axle and plugged the dimensions into a computer program more often found in engineering labs and college classrooms than high schools.
"It has to look like it's just right," Wickstrom, 14, of Gurnee said during a recent class.
Like Warren, high schools nationwide are beefing up engineering programs spurred by what business professionals and labor experts describe as a dearth of engineers and a public education system ill-equipped to train them.
Nearly half of college students who enroll in engineering programs never complete them, according to the Center for the Advancement of Scholarship on Engineering Education. But Project Lead the Way, a New York non-profit group, found that students exposed to rigorous math and science classes in middle school and high school were less likely to drop out of the college programs.
The organization enlisted engineers and professors to develop university-level curricula for high schools, then partnered with schools across the country -- including 89 in Illinois and 2,782 nationwide -- to offer advanced engineering classes.
From Bartlett to Evanston and Crystal Lake to Chicago, students with strong math skills and good test scores can earn college credit and gauge their interest in the field before they step onto a university campus.
Participation is free, said Crickett Thomas-O'Dell, Project Lead the Way's school relations director. But schools must partner with local businesses to outfit students with everything from computers to calipers.
For Warren, the connection came two years ago through an alliance with Abbott Laboratories. The North Chicago-based company employs 2,500 engineers and always needs more, said John Landgraf, senior vice president for Abbott's global pharmaceutical operation. Abbott's demand for engineers doubled during each of the last three decades.
"I went to colleges and said, 'Why don't you add more engineers? We need them,'" Landgraf said. "They blamed the high schools. Typical high school students coming to colleges were not prepared to go into the field of engineering."
Abbott then approached Warren High School about the program. The company furnished computers, lab tables and a giant tensile tester that gauges the strength of students' creations. Warren officials converted a room into an engineering lab and assigned teachers to the cause. A $30,000 grant from the Kern Family Foundation announced this month will supply classroom tools for the next three years.
Arlington Heights-based Township High School District 214 launched the engineering program three years ago after a review found the existing sequence was a "hodgepodge," said Jeff Jerdee, director of technology education. A colleague turned Jerdee onto Project Lead the Way. Today, 504 students participate in its engineering track, the largest program in Illinois, aided by local businesses.
"There are kids in there that go 'This is exactly what I want to do.' And there are kids who go 'This is exactly what I don't want to do,'" Jerdee said. "That's just as important."
Now in its second year, Warren's program includes 152 freshmen and sophomores, about 4 percent of its student body. As students advance, the program grows with them by adding a class every year. The progression, in theory, keeps teens interested and offers the carrot of potential college credit. Not to mention the possible boon for college admissions, freshman Kevin Colburn, 15, said.
"The thing about my other classes is, I've been doing them my whole life. I know the basics," he said. But in the engineering classes, "It's all new ideas." Colburn said he hopes to become an engineer or architect.
Inside Room 105, Colburn and nearly two dozen other students recently got their first dose of reverse engineering. Each student picked an item to disassemble, breaking apart everything from cassette tapes to flashlights. They diagramed, measured and weighed each piece. Next came online models drafted to scale.
Freshman Marie Olander, 14, dissected a hot-pink toy car she found at home. The exercise challenged her to use skills distinct from those she would in writing a persuasive essay or studying the French Revolution, said her mother, Ruth Olander, of Lake Villa.
"It's not just a static 'I think this might work,'" teacher Ryan McCabe said. "They do all the design. They do all the theories."
— Tara Malone
Chicago Tribune
2008-02-13
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
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