Our Griffith team were busy at the beginning of this year with our Jan/Feb recruitment and commencement of programmes. Our Jan/Feb recruitment saw 744 new students - 538 Springboard, 64 HCI and 142 July Stimulus. 

Our January exams marked our 3rd online exam cycle since the pandemic. It seems we have gotten used to the online exam cycle and thanks to a huge effort from all involved this was our most successful exam cycle yet in terms of smooth running. Well done to all involved!  

ALL INNOPHARMA CATCH UP

We enjoyed a full company catch up on February 5th.  This was our second virtual full company catch up and was very beneficial in terms of encouraging communication between divisions as well as working in break out groups on topics such as company engagement and student inductions.  

Some of the topics that were discussed that will directly impact employees: 

We are really looking forward to a time where our full company catch-ups can be face-to-face again!  

It has been great to see the impact our courses have had on graduates careers and lives in general. See below  our 2019 employment breakdown.

On March 12th, 74 students graduated from TUD/Innopharma across our BSc, Level 8 Biopharma, Level 8 Food and MSc Food programmes. Again, while it was disappointing to not be able to celebrate this graduation in person, many logged onto the live virtual graduation and we hope we will be able to celebrate properly soon. In the meantime it was great to see Innopharma Education tagged in students social celebrations!

WEBINARS

Following on from the success of our webinars last year, we continued to offer weekly webinars focusing on our Jan/Feb intakes this year. There was a big focus on our Griffith intake that commenced in February along with many July Stimulus specific webinars. Thanks to Ann and Kevin and anyone who helped with support on these weekly initiatives. We have seen a great return on these webinars over the last number of months and are looking forward to continuing these over our coming recruitment cycles. We are always looking for volunteers to host or help with these webinars to mix things up and any suggestions in terms of content, interesting additions etc. are welcome!  

In March we continued our traditional promotions within the regions with another article in the Limerick Post thanks to Mary Jo. It’s been great to see continued growth in these areas.  

2021 marked the beginning of initiating GDPR training across the business. We had our first GDPR training last Thursday which led to a lot of new important learnings to all staff. The aim of this mandatory training is to focus everyone to be compliant in terms of GDPR and our responsibilities, staff training is key to our success. Thank you to all involved in organising this.  

We are working hard on our Innopharma courses pending QQI approval. With such an emphasis on all things digitisation/digitalisation and industry 4.0/5.0 we are excited about our new Higher Cert in Process Digitisation and hope that this will be QQI approved soon. 

HORIBA - US ANNUAL SALES MEETING
PLUS EYECON₂  INTRODUCTORY TRIP TO HORIBA ASIA PAC & HORIBA INDIA

Continuing with the theme of online, we have started running our first successful online lab demonstrations live from the studio of the process and analytical labs in Sandyford. This is as part of the new MSc in Digital Transformation programme where we are taking students through practical examples of conventional process equipment. We have instruments and IoT digitised and layered on some PAT-driven automation and data visualisation using our SmartX platform. Needless to say, it has been well received and a welcome experience for students.  

Our product evelopment progress continues with the release of our SmartX HMI (human Machine Interface) for Crystallisation enabling process-centric control and visualisation of a chemical reactor and associated PAT. It is a milestone for this H2020 project and we look forward to further feature developments in the coming months, including some advanced process control.

This quarter, our Digital Maturity Assessment (DMA) was demonstrated to Merit Medical, Galway to great reception. The DMA allows manufacturers to assess where they stand in their digital transformation journeys and identify opportunities to advance their operations to more advanced levels. The Merit demonstration paves the way for further trials and demonstrations across multiple sites within the medical device and pharma industries in partnership with the IDA over the coming weeks. Exciting times ahead for our new data science push, tentatively named InnoData -we are open to new name suggestions, so get in touch with your ideas!

After graduating from Trinity College Dublin with a BA in Mathematics and French, I was delighted to get the opportunity to join the Technology Division at Innopharma. Over the past few months, I have been working closely with the software engineering team on projects relating to data science/data visualisation as well some more recent programming in Python.

Although my internship has been completely virtual, the team has created an extremely welcoming environment which I am very thankful for. So far, the experience I’ve gained has been invaluable and has provided me with a fantastic start to my working career.

TECHNICAL SERVICES UPDATES    

Cathy Peck 

I joined Innopharma officially in March 2021 as Head of Teaching and Learning after consulting with members of the team on various projects over 2020. It's great to be working with such a positive, learner focused group of people. I have been working in adult and higher education for over 20 years, both here in Ireland and internationally and my PhD was focused on intercultural learning. I'm afraid my profile photo could do with an update, but that will have to wait until hairdressers have reopened. After many years of living in Asian megacities, I'm now permanently based in the West of Ireland and happiest when getting blown away on a beach or lost in a forest with my dogs. A perfect day involves following that up with an incredible meal and some laughter. 

After nine years I decided to re-join the workforce in the middle of a global pandemic. Innopharma provided me with a great opportunity to join the company as a programme administrator with the Cork team.  Following an early career number crunching in the financial services sector I am now delighted to be part of a team helping people embark on their educational journey.

I am delighted to join Innopharma Education and the Griffith Team as a programme administrator. I have worked for many years in legal administration, developing further into Human Resources management and running my own Security business for some time, in between. All of which has given me a lot of experience and reward, not just professionally but personally.   

For me there’s no greater satisfaction than helping others and I am looking forward greatly to helping Innopharma students reach their full potential.  

I am an avid Tennis player who hasn’t seen a ball and net for longer than I expected, but hoping to get back on court soon! I am also a huge animal lover and have previously been involved in fundraising and supporting local animal shelters, which I hope to continue in the future.   

Everyone has been so welcoming and supportive at Innopharma and I’m looking forward to working, learning and growing with the team. 

Sara Cuddy

I have worked in the Medical Device Industry for 20 years, in varying positions, mostly in Human Resources (with an assignment in Corporate Development), most recently as Snr Director, Global HR. Most of my career to date has been with Medtronic, working in the corporate HQ in the US for 10 years and in the Galway facility for the remaining time. My career began working in Covidien and I had the pleasure of co-leading the HR integration of Covidien at Medtronic and the subsequent transformation and change of the HR function. I led the global HR program management team, HR digital enablement, HR technology, Mergers, Acquisitions and Divestitures and HR Operations deployment. I decided to leave MDT to care for my 3 boys who keep my very busy (especially this past year!) and I’m married to Dave. I love to travel, watching GAA and listening to live music and I’m excited to begin my career with Innopharma as I am passionate about people development.

I’m the new College Librarian at Innopharma. I am coming from RCSI where I spent 12 years working in the library there in various roles including Research Support, as the Clinical Librarian at out Beaumont hospital branch , Customer Services and Information Resources.

I have Master’s degrees in History of International Relations and also in Library & Information Studies, both from UCD. I love cycling, both on the road and mountain biking and also play soccer and tennis. Looking forward to meeting everyone in person soon (hopefully)!

I joined Innopharma in January, currently Programme Manager for L6 Pharma Dublin as well as helping with the Griffith International cohorts, I have 10 years HR experience, and most recently 3 years recruiting in the medical device sector.  

I’m from NZ, engaged to a Kerry man, due to marry in 2022! I enjoy being outdoors, last year during the first lockdown I bought a Kayak and have been hitting some of Kerry’s most scenic spots since. I have a 14mo golden retriever called Sonny, he’s great company, and provides endless entertainment while working from home.  

VIRTUAL FUN!

All Innopharma Staff were invited to join the March steps Challege whereby we aimed to get an average of 12k steps each day of March. This challenge was set up as a fundraiser for the Irish Cancer Society, a charity which means a lot to many people in Innopharma and one that Ciaran O’Connell is running his first (official) marathon for later this year (fingers crossed). This challenge was also created to encourage employees to go outside and to increase their steps throughout the day. We all know how easy it is to stay inside on screens all day whilst working remotely but it is so important to get outside and exercise every day! We are all more productive, happy and healthy if we regularly get fresh air and movement/exercise. Thank you so much to everyone who has taken part in the March Step Challenge and to anyone who has donated and/or shared our fundraising page with others. We are delighted to announce that over the course of the month of March, we as a company have taken 9,974,051 steps altogether. For the 24 that took part for the full month - this equals an average of 13,405 steps each per day. What's even more exciting is the fact that we will be sending approx. €5,000 to the Irish Cancer Society - thanks to all who donated and a massive thank you to Innopharma for matching our money raised! THANK YOU ALL AND WELL DONE!

Thank you to all of the hard work from those involved in the social committee over the last year since working from home commenced. We are appealing to some new members to give the current committee a well earned break. Please contact Mary Jane if you would like to be part of the committee, we would love some fresh faces and ideas! There have been some whispers about those in the regions being the best crack when it comes to social events.... hint, hint..

For the 6 weeks of lent, Sandra kindly offered a brilliant daily initiative running from Ash Wednesday until Good Friday. This wellness/mindfulness initiative involved a daily 7.30am zoom call (attendees' cameras off & on mute) whereby Sandra takes 20 minutes to talk us through a process of setting yourself up for a successful day, setting some positive affirmations, gratitude practices and much more. All activities are known to help with focus and wellbeing. Sandra offered something different each morning, this morning ritual has gone down a treat. Thank you to Sandra for offering such a gorgeous wellness activity and helping us to set up for our day correctly!   

As further encouragement to get staff out and about for our March Steps Challenge, we ran a photo competition on Daffodil Day. Staff sent in their lovely photos of their lockdown surroundings whilst out on a walk. Thank you to everyone who took part - a special thanks also to Ann Ryan, Paula and Mary Jo for providing some laughs through their controversial poetry. 

On Monday 8th March we hosted a ‘Ladys Lunch’ to celebrate International Womens Day. Thanks to Zivs for the lovely cocktail tutorial where we discovered that all alcohol goes with strawberries! We finished the lunch off with an amusing game of PSYCH.
It's great to see such a high ratio of successful women within all of the Innopharma divisions! 

Last month Education jumped on the success of Technology and Tech Services Pictionary. There were some interesting images throughout - lets just say none of us will be giving up our day job any time soon!  

A reminder to all staff to keep an eye on the Laya EAP website as they share a huge amount or resources in terms of articles, videos and webinars covering things like parenting, healthy eating, wellness during remote working and much more!