Local training strives to bolster biotech work force

A year-old biotechnology and bio-manufacturing training program, created by the Workforce Partnership of Greater Rhode Island and the R.I. Tech Collective, was established to nurture the biotech industry with skilled local employees for growing companies.

The R.I. Bio-manufacturing/Biotechnology Training Initiative is a collaboration between the two groups and the biotechnology industry, and was started in January 2004 with a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor. The training program is designed to develop the skills of the work force to meet industry needs and enhance the education and training resources available to these companies to ensure work force development goes beyond the grant period.

As the United States imports workers from other countries, money from purchased visas goes into a fund, and that money is now being used to establish these training initiatives so that American workers can be trained instead of bringing immigrant workers into the country, according to Dottie Miller, projects manager for the partnership.

“There is a lack of skilled workers and it’s a growing industry,” she said. “We have to grow that work force to encourage the industry to grow here.”

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The grant will run for two more years, with the possibility of a one-year extension following, Miller said, at which time the partnership and collective will try to continue the program.
“We’re hoping if we can develop the training program and get things moving into the system, we can continue it,” she said.

The training initiative is industry-driven, by a council of participating company partners, who are the lead decision makers on training requirements and overall progress. The six industry partners are Amgen/Rhode Island; Concordia Manufacturing LLC in Coventry; Nephros Therapeutics in Lincoln; Neurotech USA Inc. in Lincoln; Spherics Inc. in Lincoln; and Epivax Inc. in Providence. Training is free for the industry partners.

Neurotech has made the most of the training program, according to Bill Tente, vice president of manufacturing; all 15 of the company’s employees have received training in one or more topics. For this small biotech company, which is currently developing products for the treatment of retinal diseases, company-wide training was a luxury they couldn’t afford.

“Neurotech is a small company with 15 people and we’re venture-backed and we have to be careful about the money that we spend,” Tente said. “It’s nice to offer this to our employees to round them out, to complete their skill set.”

The training initiative largely targets future and transitioning workers – college students and people already in the industry but between jobs – and incumbent workers. A minimum of $900,000 is targeted to train employees already working in the industry who need additional skills.

Partner companies identify their own training needs and select qualified training providers; trainers are obtained through an online procurement system maintained by the R.I. Tech Collective. The grant also pays for a portion of the tuition for students who complete the one-year bio-manufacturing certificate program at the University of Rhode Island.

Employees at Neurotech have taken courses and seminars in quality assurance and inspections, which were led by Johnson & Johnson and Merck. There was a three-day statistics course on-site, software training and an engineer participated in a management training program, Tente said.

“Everyone has gone through training, from the VP level down; it’s been fun to have the entire group do it,” Tente said. “Startup companies like us are more likely than not to shy away” from extensive training like this. “We’re working at a level that allows us to be faster, get up to date on training and up to date on systems. On a per-person basis, we might have made the most of this grant.”

Neurotech was born in 2000 out of the former CytoTherapeutics. According to Tente, the company’s ability to get training like this will mean the difference between staying a small biotech business and a global one.

“For companies like ours, we have to be as productive as possible in the early stages, to meet the milestones our investors expect us to meet and getting skills associated with the business,” he said. “It enhances our ability to be more successful and to grow the business. (With the training), we have made very skilled tech people more worldly, more rounded.”

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