I found myself in ‘what now’ territory

Sanofi is a global life sciences company with more than 100,000 employees working across 70 manufacturing sites worldwide. Sanofi employs about 800 people in Waterford.

Sarah Howard, change lead with Sanofi Ireland, says the company is working to understand and solve unmet healthcare needs, particularly around rare diseases, multiple sclerosis, oncology, immunology, cardiovascular problems and diabetes.

“We work with two traineeships,” she says. “The first of these is our pharma manufacturing traineeship where learners get hands-on training in quality, continuous improvement, health and safety, plant utilities and good manufacturing practice (GMP) which is the standard used to describe the template we need to achieve in order to deliver good effectively and ethically to patients within a defined set of rules and regulations.”

This 30-week traineeship is followed by a 12-week placement.

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Elizabeth Malone applied for this traineeship after being made redundant from An Post after 13 years. "My job was in business, finances, clerical work and customer services," she says. "I found myself in 'what now' territory. Should I stay on the same path? I took time out for think. I did a European computer driving licence (ECDL) course at the training centre a few evenings a week to get me up to date with my skills and take a breather before deciding what to do."

After Malone looked around at the local industries in her area, it seemed to make sense to move into the area of pharmaceuticals. “I realised I had the option to do something completely different from what I’d done before. Why not? I thought.”

Contract

Malone finished the traineeship and her placement in February, just before the Covid crisis hit, and she is now an employee at Sanofi.

“I was very lucky to get a contract,” she says. “I think the pandemic has really opened people’s eyes to the importance of life sciences. During the crisis we’ve been one of the vital areas keeping things going. In my job I inspect the vials before they go to packaging. I was worried at first whether I would be able to do it, but I can. The training here has been really good.”

The second traineeship, which also takes 30 weeks, is focused on clean room and packing operations training, teaches learners about quality, GMP, packing and labelling and a six-sigma approach to improving processes and systems.

This traineeship is not paid, although trainees remain on a Government support scheme throughout the placement.

“To date we have had about 20 people go through the two courses who were placed with Sanofi, and 15 of them received a contract post-placement, so it’s a very successful route and helps address the difficulty of getting a job without experience and getting experience without a job,” says Howard. “This is a significant investment for training and the life sciences industry in the southeast, a good way to gain entry into the workplace and a solid foundation for a lot of other industries, given the core competencies in the programme.