Pre-programme life
Upon graduating from Pharmacy in Brazil, Juliana began her career in industry in a number of small companies (cosmetics, healthcare products and medicine (oral solid doses). Due to the smaller size of these businesses, she gained excellent exposure to different areas of validation activities such as process validation, equipment qualification, CSV and cleaning validation.
Through this diverse role, Juliana knew that validation was the career for her – she loved the variety of her position, with each day bringing a new challenge.
“One day I could be writing SOPs, protocols, or reports at my desk and the next, I could spend the whole day on the floor with the equipment and seeing how the process works.”
Prior to her move to Ireland, Juliana joined Merck - an Oral Solid Dose Manufacturing facility where she gained invaluable experience in a regulated environment, which further strengthened her skills.
“I knew Ireland had this huge hub of pharmaceutical companies, and I knew opportunities were so, so big.”
With 5 years of experience under her belt, Juliana made the decision to move to Ireland due to the attractive array of industry opportunities the country offered. Equally, she felt a great connection to Ireland and its culture so she decided to take a chance and see what happened!
Getting into the Innopharma Technical Services Validation Programme
Juliana understood the need to improve her English language skills so moved to Ireland as a student learning English. Arriving with no job meant she needed to find employment swiftly. When Juliana first heard about the Innopharma Technical Services validation programme – she thought the offer was too good to be true.
“I rang my dad and I explained the free industry training, the interview prep and the career opportunities the programme offered and he thought something funny was going on. Neither of us could believe it”
After deciding to go ahead and meet with the Innopharma Technical Services team, she knew the programme was right for her and accepted a place on the following intake!
Juliana found the programme instrumental in building her confidence. The programme enabled her to draw comparisons between Ireland's and Brazil's Regulatory Framework and Manufacturing Operations and empowered her to recognise the value of her previous experience and how transferrable it was to (Bio)Pharmaceutical Manufacturing in Ireland. The programme also helped with her verbal and written English and deepened her understanding of Irish workplace culture.
Post Validation Programme
The programme prepared Juliana for her interview with Eil Lilly where she continues to work as a Commissioning and Qualification (C&Q) engineer in Kinsale. This role is responsible for commissioning and qualifying new equipment, new systems and system components and ensuring they are all within the correct operational range.
Juliana is also responsible for the qualification of any modifications to existing systems/equipment, ensuring that they are still within the correct ranges after the modification has been made.
This involves a series of tests where the system or equipment either passes or fails, in the latter case, she will investigate and continue to modify until the system or equipment is fully qualified.
Juliana spoke of her interview prep and 1-2-1 coaching on the programme, preparing her for the challenges or scenarios that could arise in any interview for a role with the biggest names in the industry.
The programme assignments also helped Juliana as they were reflective of real-life, everyday work assignments.
Hopes for the future
Juliana is excited to continue growing in her career, with hopes for possibly moving into quality and then maybe even education in the future as she loves to share her knowledge and experience with others in the field.
Discover more and apply for our Validation programme here.