innopharma quarter four newsletter 2020

 

 

2021 Q2 STORY BY NUMBERS

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Innopharma Education

LET'S BEGIN WITH SOME EXCITING UPDATES FROM THE EDUCATION TEAM 
SPRINGBOARD 2021 LAUNCH 

It was amazing to see one of our past MSc in Food Business Management & Technology graduate, Deirdre launching the Springboard 2021 announcement with Simon Harris and Niall Collins!

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NEW PROGRAMME APPROVAL

Following on from our QQI panel on May 31st, Innopharma Education were approved of our very first QQI accredited programme independent of another college. Well done to everyone who was involved with this the development of this course and all who were involved in the QQI panel also.

The new Higher Certificate in Process Digitisation is broken into 2 minor certificate awards:
- Certificate in Information Technology for Process Digitisation 
- Certificate in Operational Excellence for Process Digitisation


Discover more about these programmes with Finbarr's great information video.


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WEBINARS

Following on from the success of our webinars since moving recruitment fully online, we have planned a number of weekly webinars over to coming months. 
Our July webinars are as follows:

July 7th  - Full Course Overview
July 14th  - Digital Transformation Offerings
July 21st  - Food Course Offerings
July 28th  - Full Course Overview

Links to register can be found here

 



SPRINGBOARD & HCI NUMBERS SEPTEMBER 2021

We received our Springboard and HCI course numbers for September 2021. 
The number of college and programme applicants were extremely high which resulted in only a 37% average approval rate overall! Thankfully we were well above average as we received funding for 11 courses, with a total of 880 places. 
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TUD ONLINE EXAMS

May 2021 saw are largest number of students examined to date. These were fully online, a big thank you to everyone who worked on this! 

# EXAMS

# SCRIPTS

# STUDENTS

L6 PHARMA SEPT 20

3

552

184

L6 PHARMA JAN 21

3

752

242

L6 FOOD SEPT 20

4

480

120

L6 FOOD JAN 21

4

426

104

L7 BSC

1

63

63

L8 BIO

3

405

135

L8 FOOD

3

114

38

MSC FOOD

3

148

50

 

 

 

 

 

24

2940

936

INNOPHARMA EDUCATION CAREERS DAY

On June 22nd, we invited our current students and past alumni to join us for our first online careers day event.

The event was hugely successful, with over 500 people registering and over 260 attending the session from 10am - 2.30pm. We have speakers from Medtronic, AllinAll Ingredients, Takeda, Edward Lifesciences, HERO Recruitment, Flexsource (CPL), Kelly Recruitment and finally, an independent food & beverage recruiter, Marian O'Learly.



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BIG GROWTH IN THE REGIONS

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SOME EXCITING NEWS FROM OUR TEACHING & LEARNING SUPPORT TEAM




CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES

Our CPD calendar is now live! 12 sessions have been delivered so far on topics including accessibility in online teaching and working, writing test items, facilitation skills and using interactive features in Go To Training.  Look out for announcements and reminders about future events!


Coming Up in July and August:

Taking the Pain out of Grading - How to Write and Use Analytic Rubrics
Wednesday July 14th 6 - 7pm
Friday July 16th 1 – 2pm

Analytic rubrics are a powerful tool for providing easier, faster, more detailed and more reliable feedback to learners via the grading process. This workshop steps through the process of identifying criteria, writing effective band descriptors and setting these up online.

REGISTER HERE

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Customised Assessment Supports
Friday August 20th , 1 - 2pm

This workshop introduces 'just in time' live workshops, drop-in sessions and asynchronous resources that can be customised to your module assessment strategy, scheduled flexibly and delivered by our Librarian and Learner Support Coordinator.

REGISTER HERE



INNOSKILLS TRANSITION

Our Innoskills Virtual Learning Environment (V.L.E.) will be playing a bigger role in the education division in the months ahead. From September 2021, Innoskills will be the new home for the Level 6 Food, Level 6 Pharma, and new Level 6 Programmes in Process Digitisation, Information Technology and Operational Excellence. The platform provides both staff and learners with access to new features and an improved interface. It will also be updated in the coming weeks to enhance functionality and security.

The education team are working to maximise the potential benefits of the transition. Standards that will provide Innopharma students with a consistent online experience are being implemented, a new suite of online learner resources has been developed and teaching staff are receiving additional supports and training.

Innoskills Transition Workshops are guiding staff through the process of getting to know the new environment. Keep an eye on your emails for invitations to this or get in touch with Cathy directly to arrange a session.

peckc@innopharmalabs.com

LEARNER HUB
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Feedback Strategies for Large Class Sizes
Friday July 23rd, 1 - 2pm

Feedback needs to be timely, actionable and provide information that learners can use to improve their performance. This workshop highlights strategies for providing meaningful feedback to large class sizes. 

REGISTER HERE

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INNOSKILLS







LAUNCHING THE LEARNER HUB

Within Innoskills, the Learner Hub is a self-access space dedicated to learner resources and supports. Learners can find resources to develop their study skills, get technical support or access pastoral care. The Learner Hub will be live from September 2021. If you’d like to suggest resources for inclusion or take a tour of the space, please get in touch with our Learner Support Co-ordinator Alexandra to discuss!

antona@innopharmalabs.com




GET IN TOUCH WITH THE T&L TEAM!

Cathy – Head of teaching & Learning – peckc@innopharmalabs.com

Danielle O’Rourke – Instructional Designer – orourked@innopharmalabs.com

Alexandra Anton – Learner Support Co-Ordinator – antona@innopharmalabs.com

Colm O’Connor – College Librarian – oconnorc@innopharmalabs.com



Technology

        GREAT NEWS FROM THE TECHNOLOGY TEAM 




A SmartX fluid bed at the University of Limerick 

Earlier this year, the Technology group won a tender to supply a fluid bed system with advanced control and PAT capabilities to the University of Limerick (UL). This will enable UL to research advanced process control methods complimented by their work to-date on fluid bed CFD modelling, as well as examining the applicability of fluid bed processing across a range of non-pharma applications through industrial partners.

This is Innopharma Technology’s first sale of our full SmartX process digitalization platform, and includes the supply of an Eyecon2 and a Multieye2 to enable real-time monitoring of particle size, moisture content, component concentrations and a range of other parameters. These sensors along with SmartX will unlock a range of advanced process control and automation options previously impossible with traditional manual or recipe-driven approaches.

The fluid bed hardware was sourced from Glatt GmbH, and is one of their newly-released MultiLab systems. This was delivered to UL recently, with the project kicking-off in earnest with visits in June by Claude Lacey and Chris O’Callaghan to connect, commission, and test this hardware.

Expect to hear a lot more about UL over the coming months, as we focus on the significant project of deploying our PAT and SmartX systems, training UL personnel on their use, and supporting UL in the development of model-driven control methodologies, that will hopefully generate valuable insights for the industry at-large.




LIGHTHOUSE PARTNERSHIPS IN DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGIES

Developing Next Generation Collaborations and Convergence with Local and Global Leaders. 

Innopharma are delighted to be a central partner of a new and rapidly growing cluster of companies in Ireland (manufactures and service providers) seeking to utilise partnerships to accelerate the transition of current operations towards Industries towards Industry 5.0.   The cluster iniative is backed by Biopharmachem Ireland, and state agencies such as IDA and Enterprise Ireland. 

 The competitive advantage of partnering across sectors is primarily be in leveraging subject matter expertise and best practice within one sector which is now necessary to another sector where that competency does not exist. 

As an initial first step towards this goal, the cluster is undertaking a Digital Maturity and Sustainability Assessment across six manufacturing sites to benchmark current state and identify best practise and opportunity for joint effort. The sites nominated for the assessment are a cross section of solid dose pharma including API and downstream manufacturing, CDMO and big and emerging pharma which should provide a good snapshot of the state of technology across the diversity of operations that represent small molecule operations in Ireland.  

For participants taking part in this assessments it will enable them to inform their digital and sustainability strategy in terms of:  

 

  • to assess where they are in their transformation journey.  

  • to create goals and plans 

  • to make impactful transformation project investments 

  • to obtain greatest value from effort 

 

The keystone to this assessment is Innopharma who have on behalf of the cluster, designed, developed and are currently facilitating the rollout of the assessment to this pilot group. With over 400 questions across 11 different categories the assessment covers the full gamut of operations of a facility and should be complete including comprehensive report generation by end of September. It is a herculean effort, which draws upon the subject matter expertise across the Innopharma Team and our thanks to all who are contributing to making this a success.  

It is a fantastic opportunity  for Innopharma to lead this initiative and raise our profile with the site leadership teams of so many excellent manufacturing companies in Ireland, and no doubt will lead to further opportunities for strategic engagement.    

The information gathered will do much to further the successful future of pharma manufacturing in Ireland and will serve to ensure that our decisions in serving the future skills needs of the industry is evidence based and data driven.  

 

SmartX in UL



















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INNOPHARMA TECHNOLOGY NEW STARTERS 
OUR TECHNOLOGY TEAM GROWS AGAIN! WELCOME, GIRISH MALLYA!

I joined Innopharma Technology in April 2021 as a Senior Software Developer. My educational background is image processing and I have 10 years of professional experience developing image analysis solutions. This has mainly been in the biotechnology/medical devices space, in both research and commercial settings. My work has involved programming in MATLAB, C++, and in more recent years, Python.

I am delighted to be part of the team here at Innopharma, and look forward to learning many new things while making a few contributions of my own in the process.

GIRISH

INNOPHARMA TECHNICAL SERVICES

TECHNICAL SERVICES UPDATES    


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It’s been another busy quarter in the Technical Services Division with the resumption of our QC Analyst programme in the laboratory, the delivery of our validation programme to cohort 15 and four new starters at clients sites (with four more in the process of coming on board – more in our next Newsletter).




QC

Having spent a number of weeks on online delivery, the easing of restrictions facilitated the return to the laboratory for our QC Analyst Cohort 3 group.  

Cohort 3 are now coming to the end of their training, and to date we have had several constructed discussions with our industry partners on opportunities for placements.

Thanks to Deirdre Finn, Paula Kearney and Nikita Bhusa for their support with delivering our Quality Control Programme.

We would like to take the opportunity to congratulate Annie Thomas who is on the Quality Control Program on her recent marriage and wish her well for the future.

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VALIDATION

On the Validation front Cohort 15 have just completed the programme and interest from clients has been at an unprecedented level.  Interviews have been thick and fast with 4 start dates in July confirmed to date.   

Cohort 16 will commence on July 19th and the last few places are currently being filled.

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QC 3

MARKETING

On the marketing front we have run a number of campaigns through LinkedIn which has resulted in a significant increase in traffic to our website.  We will continue to focus on building our brand throughout 2021.  Don’t forget to like and share!

We are also starting to monitor our website traffic with a view to implementing website improvements as required. 

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NEW STARTERS, REGRETTABLE LEAVERS & WEDDING BELLS 



We welcomed Daire Crowe, Priyanka Valgadde, Ishita Chandrawanshi and Harsha Kalathil Girish to the technical services team :

Daire has commenced as an Equipment Qualification Engineer placed with Amgen in Dun Laoghaire, Dublin.  Priyanka has been placed with Regeneron, Limerick in their Analytical Instrument qualification team. Both Ishita and Harsha have commenced roles as cleaning validation engineers at Eli Lilly Kinsale Co. Cork. 

To get to know a little bit more about Daire, Priyanka, Ishita and Harsha see “Get to know our new starters” section. 

We bade farewell to Adam Jackman and Brian McNamara in June. 

Big congratulations to Ayushi Gulbani (Cleaning Validation Engineer at Regeneron) on her recent marriage to Akshit Tripathi.  Their wedding took place on April 21st in Hyderabad, India.  Congratulations Ayushi and Akshit and best wishes for a long and happy future together.

 


WEDDING

INNOPHARMA TECHNICAL SERVICES NEW STARTERS 
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DC

Priyanka Valgadde

Hi Team, I’m excited to be a part of the validation engineering team at Innopharma Technical Services. Having had three years of strong experience as a quality engineer in food industry I found validation engineering internship at Innopharma to be extremely valuable. It helped me identify a lot of transferrable skills from my previous experience with respect to equipment, facility, process design and regulatory authorities. I’m thrilled to represent Innopharma at Regeneron as a validation engineer and put my skills to action.

A few words about me. When I’m not working, I’m either cooking up a storm in my kitchen or drawing. I also love decorating and help my friends re-design their space in my free time.

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Ishita Chandrawanshi

I hold an undergraduate degree in Biotechnnology, Biochemistry and Genetics from Bangalore University, India. Also, I am a masters qualified in Biotechnology from University College Dublin, Ireland.  During my education, I got an opportunity to work at Conway institute of biomolecular and biomedical research that enabled me to generate miniature form of human kidneys and use it for finding therapeutic alternatives for Diabetes. After having finished a work simulation program with Innopharma technical services I am currently placed at Eli Lilly and Company as a Validation Engineer.












Harsha Kalathil Girish

I am Harsha Kalathil Girish and I hail from the south of India. I completed an Integrated Masters in Biotechnology from Vellore Institute of Technology in India. After the completion of which I worked as research intern at the National Centre for Cell Sciences and also as a production support intern at Aeka Biochemicals in India before relocating to Ireland. Here, I completed my MSc in Biotechnology and Business from University College Dublin. I am currently working as a Cleaning Validation Engineer with Innopharma Technical Services, placed at their client site, Eli Lilly.

Daire Crowe

Hi, my name is Dáire. I’m 25 and I’m from Lahinch, Co. Clare. I went to college at NUI Galway and hold a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering, graduating in 2019. As part of my Bachelor’s degree, in 2017 I spent 8 months on co-operative placement in Boston Scientific Galway, working as a member of the process development team on a minimally invasive aortic valve replacement device.

When I finished college, I found it tough to make that first step into industry. While having good experience, I found getting past the interview hurdle challenging. When I heard about the Validation programme at Innopharma, I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to learn, improve my skills and to help me make that leap into industry. The programme was great. I learned a lot about all the different aspects of validation from Audrey and Luke, which was something I would not have known a great deal about previously. The interview training with Caroline was also a great help and gave me confidence going into interviews which I wouldn’t have had before.

Thankfully I managed to get placed with Amgen in Dún Laoghaire and I’m now working as part of the Equipment Qualification team here. Amgen are a huge multinational biotechnology company specializing in the production of biological therapeutics and it’s an honour for me to be taking on a role here.

Outside work I have a huge interest in sport. I play Gaelic football and golf with my local clubs Ennistymon GAA and Lahinch Golf Club. I would also be a big Manchester United fan. I’m delighted to be joining the team at Innopharma!

INNOPHARMA
A WARM WELCOME TO OUR NEWBIES 

Adi

Aditya Shankar

I am thrilled to be joining Innopharma Education as a program administrator. I Joined the team on 6th April 2021. I am from India and have 5 years of administrative experience. I am excited to be a part of a team that is serving people in their educational journey. 

I hold master's degrees in finance and marketing from LNMI, Patna, as well as a postgraduate diploma in accounting from Trinity College Dublin. I have a keen interest in start-ups and keep myself informed about the industry. I enjoy seeing new places and learning about new cultures. Emerald Isle has captured my heart.

At Innopharma, everyone has been so nice and welcoming, and I'm looking forward to working and progressing with the team.


Kathryn Hickey

I joined Innopharma in June,  working in Finance with Ciaran Byrne. I am a Chartered Accountant with many years’ experience in the SME sector. I am looking forward to this new challenge and am delighted to be joining  Innopharma in this period of growth and development.

Outside of work I am a keen tennis and badminton player and also kept very busy with 4 daughters!

Hoping to meet you all soon in the office!

Kathryn

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Ciara Mooney

After finishing my degree in June in NUI Galway where I studied a BA in English and History, I was delighted to get the opportunity to work with Innopharma Education, aiding the recruitment for Level 7 BSC in Process Technologies along side Paula Kearny. 

Although, so far, my work has been completely virtual, I have had a great welcome from all the team at Innopharma. The job so far has given me the opportunity to expand my knowledge in recruitment as well as help me work on my communication skills. I am really looking forward to my future with Innopharma Education! 

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VIRTUAL FUN!


ALL INNOPHARMA CATCH UP

We enjoyed a full company catch up on June 10th. This quarters company catch up involved a couple very interesting guest speakers in relation to 'Sustainability Today and in the Future' and 'Conversations from Coaching to Counselling'. We also heard from our Tech Services Team, Education Regional Teams and our Technology Team. 

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


BOOK & FILM CLUB

Our next book club is on TODAY and the following books have been recommended: 

  • The Book Thief

  • Rules for a Perfect Murder

  • The Pillars of the Earth

  • The Evening and the Morning

  • Hurling The RevolutionYears

  • True Colours 

 

The following watches have also been recommended: 

  • Sophie De Plantier Doc

  • Mare of Eastown 

 

If you are interested in reading/watching any of the above or if you already have, make sure and call into our meeting today at 1pm to discuss your thoughts and suggest our next picks! 

We are constantly looking for new members to attend with new suggestions for our avid readers/watchers.  


LAYA HEALTHCARE EMPLOYEE ASSISTANCE PROGRAMME

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!




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SOCIAL COMMITTEE 

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..


WELL DONE ON ALL YOUR HARD WORK OVER THE FIRST HALF OF 2021!