Dr. Graham Brearley always has had a passion for applied biology, and when he was exposed to protein biochemistry during his college years, he claims the rest was simply “a natural progression.”

Brearley explained that his childhood fascination with biology attracted him to the field of biologics, specifically. “I particularly enjoyed the application of biology, as opposed to just the academic study of it.”

His path brought him from home in England to sunny California, where he worked for Baxter International—acquired by Shire in 2016—and most recently, to chilly Madison, Wisconsin to assume the role of general manager at Catalent.

Fortunately for Brearley, he was familiar with Wisconsin winters before making the move from California: “My wife is actually from here, so I knew what I was getting myself into.”

A global manufacturer of drug delivery technology and development solutions for drugs, biologics and consumer health products, Catalent produces more than 70 billion doses annually for nearly 7,000 customer products and operates 33 locations across five continents.

R&D Magazine sat down with Dr. Brearley at the company’s Madison site to discuss how the facility is revamping its training programs to address the challenges of its geographical location as well as the industry-wide challenge of talent acquisition and retention.

A Midwest location is somewhat unique for a pharmaceutical company. The three common U.S. locations for pharmaceutical research and manufacturing are the research triangle park in North Carolina, the Bay area in Northern California and the Boston area. Catalent has a global presence, but the Midwest facility has faced some challenges because it can be hard to find people with substantial biologics or Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) manufacturing. 

Brearley commented, “The site doesn’t have a great candidate pool to draw from in terms of people with prior relevant experience. However, we realized we have access to really good students from the University of  Wisconsin. The science programs are excellent, so we can take people and train them to work in this industry.”

Catalent also has introduced accelerated leadership programs that provide exposure by sending employees to different facilities around the country.

While it may present some talent acquisition challenges, the Madison location is no accident.

“This facility and the Madison site grew out of a research project that originated at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that developed cell lines that could express high levels of recombinant proteins with a very reliable production system, called the GPEx technology. The history of this facility is built on that technology, and we have of course expanded beyond the original technology,” Brearley explained.

The GPEx technology is a method of taking the Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell line and transfecting the cell with multiple stable copies of the gene of interest on the protein you want to express.

“The specific way in which the protein is inserted, and where they’re inserted, and how they are turned on and activated, and how the proteins are made is a proprietary technology that this cell lines has that other companies don’t,” Brearley elaborated. “Several different companies have their own cell lines, and they all work to some degree or another, but Catalent’s has really proven the test of time in terms of expression levels and the controllability and reproducibility of the line.

“So there are advantages and disadvantages to being here. But we certainly, as a global company, are well-connected to the places our clients have a presence,” Brearley said.

Talent acquisition and retention are not challenges unique to Catalent, or even its Madison facility. Many manufacturing companies, within and outside of pharma, are struggling to attract and keep a talented workforce.

“The pace of change in the world is unprecedented, and so are generational changes,” Brearley commented. “We’re bringing in specific generational training because a baby boomer and a millennial have different expectations. We are finding that millennials seem to have a thirst for learning new things, and if you don’t provide that, they will move on.”

Brearley is an advocate for rotational assignments in which employees start in one area at a company, and then move to another area, and then another every six months or so. “That way employees are exposed to a cross section which accomplishes two things: One, it provides well-rounded knowledge and understanding, making them a more valuable employee; and two, it exposes them to different things that could trigger something in them, and gives them a chance to find what really interests them at your company. That is what I want to achieve at Catalent.”

According to Brearley, a rotational program benefits the company and the employee.

Brearley said he was drawn to Catalent because of its patientcentered culture. “A culture that goes beyond the client and goes all the way to the patient really transforms how you work and how you make decisions.”

Keeping the patient at the center of everything he does has always been a priority for Brearley. During his time at his former employer, a slogan was developed that emphasized this approach to pharmaceutical development: “Each vial has a name.”

Brearley elaborated, “We were working on a product that was in very short supply and because of that, every single vial of product that we made was already accounted for in terms of what patient it was going to.”

He said this concept hit home for him when the company invited one of the patients who had been using their product for a number of years to visit the facility and speak to the employees.

“It was very impactful,” he commented. “There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.”

A picture was taken of the patient and hung on a wall in the facility, until it was replaced with a new patient the following month, and so on.

“We called it our wall of fame,” Brearley recalled with a smile. “The image had a caption that read, ‘This month, we’re working for _____.’”

Because Catalent is a contract manufacturing organization, it is crucial for the company to balance the needs of the client and the end user.

“Catalent doesn’t have a final product that goes into a patient. We make products for our clients, and they are the ones running the clinical or commercial programs. Ideally, we’re doing what’s best for the client and the patient, but it’s important not to put the checkbook ahead of a quality decision.” 

When asked what advice he would give to students considering a career in the pharmaceutical industry, he referenced his own uncertainties he faced as a college student. “I was going to be a dentist, actually. It’s not even that I wanted to be a dentist. I just didn’t know what else I wanted to do. I had gotten into a good school for dentistry, and was all set to go. And then a few months before classes started, I went back to my advisor and said, you know what, I don’t think this is what I want to do.” 

His advisor told him to focus on what he was interested in as opposed to the career he wanted to have. This led him to a program in applied biology in London.

“The third year was an industrial placement year at the Center for Applied Microbiology and Research in London, which is somewhat equivalent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the U.S. When I completed my degree, they offered me a full time job as a process development scientist while I pursued a PhD.”

He worked on bench scale microbial fermentation before the term biotechnology had even been crowned. It was stilled called microbial technology.

To students, he suggested keeping your options open, developing a broad, basic scientific knowledge, and allowing yourself to gravitate towards something you truly enjoy.

He also finds the growth of biologics and biosimilars significant. It is not so much the newness of biologics because, as Brearley put it, the first biologics to achieve over a billion dollars in revenue are now more than 20 years old.

“Rather,” he said, “the percentage of total sales, or total products from biologics versus traditional products, has significantly ramped up.”

“What was expected to be the biggest challenge was the pathway for getting approval for biologics because of their sheer molecular complexity,” he added. “But time has shown that we can accurately reproduce the licensed molecule with biologics, and there are more and more of them coming to the market.”

At the time we first spoke, Brearley had been with Catalent eight weeks, and says one of his first tasks was performing a site assessment based on his prior experience.

“This site has grown rapidly, but that level of growth brings certain challenges. I have to balance short-term and long-term goals.”

He identified hiring and training as short-term goals, commenting that the facility recently had added 120 new positions. “That’s a lot of new employees, and as I mentioned, many don’t have prior experience, so the focus is on implementing really strong training programs.”

A long-term goal Brearley says would require assessing where the company is today, where it wants to be five years from now, and what has to be done to get from where it is to where it’s going.

“I’ve prioritized those things that will get us to where were going, which is doable because, as a company, we have a clear idea of where that needs to be.”

Gesturing to the empty space just beyond his office windows, he spoke of Catalent’s planned new warehouse.

If the new construction is any indication, it appears Catalent’s Midwest site is continuing to grow, and that will mean more new employees to train. However, Brearley appears to have that under control. “Do what works for your employee population, and you’ll find that win-win situation,” he stated simply.

When not drafting up goals for Catalent, Brearley spends time exploring the outdoors with his wife and training the newest edition to his family—an eight month old rescue puppy. 

“She is adorable… sometimes,” he said affectionately, holding out his phone to show me a picture. “She is extraordinarily rambunctious. We had a family picnic here at Catalent, and it was her first social event. She failed miserably.”

About the Author: Catherine Sbeglia is a Contributing Editor for Advantage Business Marketing.