Passing the Tests
Quick Start helps global biotech giant Quintiles find local workforce
Balloons and linen tablecloths created a festive atmosphere at the recent grand opening of Quintiles Transnational’s new facility in Cobb County. But the real celebration was focused on the 400 jobs being created at the world laboratory headquarters of one of the nation’s leading pharmaceutical research companies.
“We’ve received tremendous support from Georgia and Cobb County to get here,” said Dan Brown, vice president and general manager of Quintiles Laboratories North America (the United States/Canada laboratory arm of Quintiles Transnational). “Quick Start is working with us to create a strategic workforce, and we’ll need more of their help as we fulfill our commitment to create 400 new jobs. In this beautiful new facility, we have room to grow.”
Quintiles Transnational is one of the leading Contract Research Organizations (CRO) in the business. CROs are used by pharmaceutical companies to perform many of the steps in the development of new drugs that used to be done in-house. Using CROs allows pharmaceutical companies to speed up the development of new therapies and bring them to market faster. Delays in getting a new drug on the market can sometimes cost a pharmaceutical company $1 million per day.
A few weeks after the grand opening, Brown expands on the value of the CRO, citing a Tufts Drug Development Center study that found, on average, CROs shorten the drug development timeline by about a month. At the projected $1 million per day, that could translate to about $30 million in savings.
Quintiles has played a role in the development or commercialization of the top 30 best-selling pharmaceutical products and nine of the top 10 biotech products on the market today. The industry giant is based in the Raleigh-Durham, N.C., “Research Triangle,” and has facilities in 57 countries, employing more than 22,000 worldwide. The company already employs more than 400 in Cobb County, so the opening of the new building is the first step in doubling its Georgia workforce, which will encompass a broad range of job types and skill sets within the strategic biotech industry.
“CROs support many areas of pharmaceutical development — commercialization, marketing, site setup for drug studies, and actual testing — so the lab is just one piece of the business,” says Brown. “Because of the diversity of different occupations that we have within the building, we have really taken enormous advantage of what Quick Start has to offer us.”
During the first half of 2008 alone, Quick Start conducted more than 64 classes covering 25 subjects in more than 5,000 training hours.
“We expect our total training hours to exceed 20,000 in 2009,” Brown adds.
To develop the customized training plan for Quintiles, Quick Start’s training professionals performed a thorough needs analysis before selecting the components for the company’s overall, strategic workforce solution. The plan featured both technical and non-technical training, and included medical and non-medical personnel. Courses were developed for Quintiles in collaboration skills, leadership, quality, good lab practices, good manufacturing practices, and project management, as well as courses specific to Quintiles’ own processes and equipment.
“Quick Start is really supporting us on the technical training side by developing many of the training tools that fit right into the guts of our business and the internal operations of how we do things,” says Brown.
One highlight that stands out for Brown is a video that was scripted and produced by Quick Start’s media team. Quintiles uses a complex, proprietary system called QNET, which is a Web-based data viewing tool for geographically dispersed testing sites and client companies. The Quick Start video has become an essential tool for the company in helping both employees and clients make maximal use of QNET.
“We’ve gotten very positive feedback on the video,” says Brown. “That’s been very, very successful for us.”
Crossroads of Global Health
Georgia’s prominence as a home for biotechnology and bioscience companies continues to grow. Biotech was targeted as a strategic industry by Gov. Perdue’s Commission for a New Georgia in 2005, and since then Georgia has risen to the 10th ranked in the nation for biotech companies doing business in the state. Georgia has also been selected as the site of the 2009 BIO International Convention, the largest global event for the biotechnology industry.
“The selection of Georgia for our world lab headquarters was a competitive process,” said Tom Wollman, senior vice president for Quintiles Central Laboratories. “The education, workforce and training programs are all part of the reason we came here. Quick Start has some great things to offer, and we’re going to make the most of it.”
In addition to the availability of Quick Start’s workforce training, the state’s logistical infrastructure has proven advantages for biotech companies.
“Positioning a lab has a lot to do with logistics; because specimens are coming in every single day,” said Dan Brown, vice president and general manager of Quintiles Laboratories North America. “Quintiles is based in the home of one of Atlanta’s major competitors for biotech, the Research Triangle in North Carolina. But, from a laboratory perspective and from a logistical perspective, we’re positioned better in Atlanta, the world’s leading hub for aircraft travel.”
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