Pharmaceutical Science Industrial Placement 2024

Are you looking to gain valuable real world work experience and help positively impact the lives of others?

A GSK internship offers you the opportunity to kickstart your career – to take on a real role with genuine impact. You’ll take on challenging tasks within live projects or assignments. You’ll also get to learn from others in your team and other parts of GSK whilst developing your skills and gaining valuable experience for wherever the future takes you.

Global Supply Chain (GSC) is the group within GSK that is responsible for making and supplying medicines and vaccines across the globe. At our manufacturing sites we produce over 2.3 billion medication packs and vaccines doses to 90% of the world's countries.

About the role

Our manufacturing sites’ pharmaceutical science placements will give first-hand experience of the development, planning and manufacture of either respiratory or oral solid dose medicines.

You will work directly with and learn from an experienced team of who will coach and mentor you during your year to help you achieve your potential. Your time with GSK will be spent primarily focussed on:

• Supporting New Product Introduction (NPI)
• Supporting manufacturing processes and equipment for existing products
• Continuous Improvement (CI) activities
• Co-ordination and implementation of planned change
• Supporting troubleshooting of processes and manufacturing investigations.

You’ll be contributing to ensuring our pharmaceutical products are manufactured to stringent quality and safety standards. Opportunities will be available daily to work closely with other GSK departments which will provide a deep understanding to the way our Global Supply Chain sites work.

Whichever role you go into, you will be applying the skills you already have and developing new skills such as team working, problem solving and building relationships. You will work with and learn from an experienced team of technologists, process engineers, product owners and data scientists- they will coach and mentor you during your year to help you achieve your potential.

Please note these roles require full time attendance in the manufacturing site and therefore may not be suitable to integrated master’s students.

Who are we looking for?

• To be a strong team player
• Strong interpersonal and communications skills
• Ability to write technical reports.
• Problem solving skills.
• Well-organised and patient focussed.
• Drive for continuous improvement.
• Ideally, good IT skills (SAS and PowerBI routinely used – but prior experience not essential as training is provided)
• Ability to demonstrate qualities aligned with GSK Culture.

Locations

Please read below about the 3 different locations/roles we are recruiting for across our Industrial Placements. Please note, these are distinct placements and so when you apply you will be able to select preferences of where you would like to be placed if successful. We will accommodate your preference where possible.

Role/Location 1: Barnard Castle

The Barnard Castle site is located in the Northeast of England and is sited within the County Durham countryside. Barnard Castle is a key secondary site for GSK with a large number of New Products coming through development at site. We manufacture and supply a huge range of different pharmaceutical products from Sterile Products (Syringes and Vials) to Liquid Inhalations and Dermatologicals.   We have recently opened a new state of the art aseptic digital facility producing biopharmaceuticals.

Multiple opportunities exist for candidates with a strong science or engineering background to work alongside the Steriles Operations / Process Support Teams who support the manufacture, filling, inspection and packaging of a range of Sterile Vial and Syringe pharmaceutical products and in our secondary manufacturing area providing technical expertise products, processes and activities.

The Sterile Production Areas are multi-product facilities producing a vast range of aseptic vial and syringe products with many new, revolutionary products and associated complex manufacturing / filling processes and technology. The successful candidate will integrate into the support teams and be expected to deliver a business or compliance improvement project. Project specifics will be agreed at the time of placement depending on area activities and course of study - these may include specific improvement activities or product aligned support (e.g., Product campaign readiness and improvements, inspection readiness, KPI monitoring and performance management).

In addition to this the opportunities will arise to support day to day operations working in a safe and compliant manner. Exposure to this highly regulated and fast paced environment will build a great understanding of pharmaceutical manufacture and compliance activities, whilst also providing the opportunity to be involved in activities supporting the introduction of many new products. The role will involve much cross-functional working, including but not limited to Production, Operational Quality, Engineering, Microbiology, New Production Introduction and Logistics. This will allow the successful candidate to develop existing communication skills and gain exposure to many different business and technical processes.

At the secondary manufacturing Oral Solid Dose (OSD) value stream, we are looking for a high calibre technical individual to take part in strategically important business projects, working closely with key stakeholders across the business. You will experience first touch troubleshooting, working on technical projects and supplying technical data. The successful candidate will also get involved in providing technical support in response to site quality notifications, corrective and preventative actions and internal audit findings. You will have the opportunity to build relationships and work cross-functionally with production, engineering, process engineering and quality representative, to provide technical expertise.

Role/Location 2: Ware

Ware is the largest GSK site in the UK with a thriving early talent community. The Ware Global Supply Chain site manufactures and supplies oral solid dose tablets (for HIV and oncology) and respiratory devices (for asthma and COPD) to over 140 countries, as well as to patients participating in clinical trials, playing a key role in new product introduction. Ware site is located less than a mile from the station, with regular rail links through to London Liverpool Street, taking around 45 minutes.

We have several pharma science placement opportunities at Ware. You will be working within our technical teams putting your university knowledge into practical applications. This may include identifying and working on process improvements and new product or process projects as well as investigating deviations, writing technical reports and assisting in analysing and visualising data from our manufacturing processes for both our respiratory and oral solids dosing value streams.

The early lifecycle team focuses on the new product introduction. You will have the opportunity to get involved in a wide range of activities from designing manufacturing processes and performing cleaning risk assessments to taking responsibility for communications tasks.

For the late lifecycle team, the focus is on established commercial products already on the market. The late lifecycle team monitor and strive to improve product performance in conjunction with the Manufacturing and Quality departments, managing complex product or process changes, and leading or supporting investigations, as well as providing routine support for Production, OQ and the Labs. There is a strong Continuous Improvement mindset at Ware,and teams are always looking to improve product or process performance.

Role/Location 3: Worthing

The Worthing site manufactures more than 34 million packs of antibiotics each year, and our 60-year legacy has seen generations of talented people proudly producing our high-quality medicines for patients around the globe. The Worthing site is situated approximately 2 miles from the South Coast and located at the foot of the picturesque South Downs; We are also only 15 miles from the cosmopolitan and cultural city of Brighton and Hove. Worthing boasts the opportunity to combine city, countryside and coast all in one location, and even offers rail links to London in under 90 minutes.

There are several placement roles within the site technical teams which involve supporting the manufacture of our Oral products, comprising process steps from powder blending, milling, tablet compression, coating of tablets and secondary packaging. You will be exposed to project work, day to day plant support activities, complaint and deviation root cause investigations, validation, process improvement activities, data analysis and much more. Successful candidates will either support the Manufacturing or Packaging area through their placement but will have opportunities to learn about both.

What do we offer you?

• Salary of £21,400, plus a bonus
• Access to GSK resources, including employee assistance programmes, private healthcare and well-being programs.
• On-the-job experience, training and development, delivered through a mixture of coaching and mentoring
• A GSK placement which gives you the opportunity to take on a real role with genuine impact
• You will join IPUnite, GSK’s community of over 250 students across all UK sites and business areas, run by the Industrial Placement students committee
• Once you accept your offer you will be invited to join LinkedIn groups and pre-joining webinars, to enable you to connect and network with new students