Insights on Transitioning Between Food and Pharma Industries
Hi all,
Is anyone here in biopharma? Has anyone made a transition from food to pharma or vice versa?
What are the similarities and pros/cons in these two industries?
I'd love to hear what you guys think even if you have been in only either of them.
Thank you for your input!
I've actually been thinking of making this move. There are a lot of bio-tech firms in the Bay Area, Ca and it seems a great amount are hiring, pay scales seem very broad. I have a friend who works for a major BT firm and he transitioned from the healthcare industry. Other than starting out at various off hours to build tenure they enjoy the work and through our discussions seems there are a lot of parallels from the food sector to BT.
I am interested in this topic as well, might be some valued persuasion.
Thanks for posting kconf!
Many of the GMP's are similar, similar traceability and documentation requirements. I do know there is more funding for that side of the FDA's various centers, especially compared to the Human Foods Div., so being on your game when it comes to all the regulatory requirements is a must. I often see FDA Warning Letters issues by CDER compared to those issued by Human/Animal Foods.
I would be very wary of biotech or pharma startups, however. But I also think having a healthy dose of skepticism toward startups of any nature is a good habit.
Hardest customer audit I ever had on the food side was a couple of gals with bio-pharma backgrounds. So many of the basics are similar (GMP, traceability, documentation, etc.), but I still remember the one hangup we had regarding a time/temp CCP on a sterilization chamber. Pharma seems like it gets way deeper on the validation side of things, to the degree that they wanted to ding us for not having a calibrated and certified timer attached to our sterilization chamber. It was insufficient to them that it was computer controlled and relied on the computer's onboard clock (which caught me completely flatfooted, I have no clue how to go determine how accurate a Windows time function is). We were able to wiggle our way out by showing that all of our programmed runs were set to longer times than what our validations required, by enough time that it calmed their concerns.
But I just walked away from that audit feeling like if QA in pharma has to be able to prove 20:00 min on a clock is exactly 20:00, the validation requirements in general are going to be a step or even three above what I'm used to...
very interesting topic ! I been thinking about this !
I have run a quality program that made excipient ingredients for the pharma industry. Excipient is a step down from active ingredients as far as the program (so I have been told) go but was a step up from food. FDA still has their cGMP's Guidance for Industry, Q7A Good Manufacturing Practice Guidance for Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients | FDA, and USP sets different standards for both types. You can get some good info from excipients-reference-standards-summary-final.pdf (usp.org) as well.
For one example of the 'step up' I can remember off the top of my head, label reconciliation was much more involved. Labels were sequentially numbered and had to be accounted for at the end of the run.
Hi all,
Is anyone here in biopharma? Has anyone made a transition from food to pharma or vice versa?
What are the similarities and pros/cons in these two industries?
I'd love to hear what you guys think even if you have been in only either of them.
Thank you for your input!
I made the inverse transition, having worked at an IgG 'manufacturing' plant (ISO 5-8) and now working as a food microbiologist. All industries have similarities and common downfalls, the most noticeable being poor communication.
For me, it came down to what I value more. I received more PTO and lighter workloads at (BIG PHARMA) but the job was over-simplified. Albeit, the government oversight is ~similar~, BIG PHARMA audits are something I feared, internal and external.