Come One, Come All: C&G Hubs Move Mountains To Build Future Talent Pipeline
By Anna Rose Welch, Editorial & Community Director, Advancing RNA
I’ve heard it, you’ve heard it, we’ve all heard it — there is a shortage of talent available to embark upon these (mostly) uncharted cell and gene therapy development journeys. In talking with many of you about your backgrounds, it has been fun to learn about your different paths, whether you’ve come from a long history of working with mAbs, vaccines, vector research in academia or development within the frontrunner C&G companies or CDMOs.
The shortage of talent comes up in pretty much every article I’ve read about cell and gene therapy manufacturing, so I wanted to call attention to a couple of pieces that I feel are particularly valuable and show that there are ongoing efforts to ameliorate this situation.
First is this piece my colleague Erin Harris at Cell & Gene published on Philadelphia’s Talent Pipeline Collaborative. This collaborative, which comprises C&G companies and academic institutions, runs the gamut; it’s currently forging partnerships with a wide variety of STEM training and educational organizations based in/around Philadelphia to cultivate near-term and long-term industry talent growth. Here’s a taste of some of the (many) things they’re up to:
The Collaborative will … be making connections with programs such as the newly announced strategic arrangement between The Wistar Institute (the nation’s first independent biomedical research institute) and Cheyney University of Pennsylvania (the nation’s first historically Black college and university) as they work together to expand life science research education, training and business development opportunities in Pennsylvania. Other activities of the Talent Pipeline Collaborative will focus on building a longer-term pipeline by providing connections for the member organizations and training partners to mentor and sponsor programs for K-12 students through career exposure, classroom, and site visits.
From one hub to another — this time across the ocean in the U.K.: the Cell & Gene Catapult announced the launch of the Advanced Therapy Skills Training Network in December 2020 here. This training center will offer three types of opportunities, including an online training program, in-person training centers, and a career converter to help match and advance skill sets with prospective job opportunities in new fields. Here’s the main spiel about the initiative overall:
The ATSTN has been designed in collaboration with industry to address its needs to upskill current professionals as well as to leverage skills from other sectors, opening opportunities for people to join the cell and gene therapy industry from different ones. ATSTN users will be able to access learning materials, whether remotely or on-site, from a wealth of expertise across the entire industry, while tailoring their personal learning experience to their own needs.
If you haven’t been watching the work of the Cell & Gene Catapult, I’d suggest you check out the wide variety of resources on the state of the industry today, including the 2019 U.K. Cell & Gene Therapy Skills Demand Report. The area raising the most hiring concerns was the manufacturing realm, including engineering and health & safety professionals. Process development, including analytical development, and all things quality were also of heightened concern given the amount of hiring companies anticipate carrying out in those areas through 2024.
A question I’ve been interested in asking a large number of you during our calls is how your own transition into the cell and gene therapy industry went (or is going) based on your biologics background. Obviously, there are a variety of technical and scientific/biological learnings that present learning curves for everyone, depending on the specifics of each company’s program. Moving from academia into the cGMP world can also throw a few curveballs in people’s way.
But in talking with many of you, it also became clear that to succeed in this space, you must have a sense of adventure and be willing to embrace the unknown. Many companies are building themselves and their programs from the ground up, and as such, new employees will not be stepping into a role with tunnel vision on one or two specific tasks and a three-month training plan and procedure. A sentiment someone shared that I really liked was that coming into this industry is not a comfortable process — and it won’t be comfortable for years. So, to succeed in this industry, you have to learn to take a walk on the wild side and be willing to step beyond the limits of just your specialty (even though you may arrive looking like this or this in five years. And to that, I’d say: we make movies and tv shows about these people for a reason. So, be like Xena Warrior Princess. Just do it.)