PharmaLex in Ireland

I am lucky my children are older so I don’t have the added pressure of home schooling.  I’m at my desk at 7.30am to get ahead of the day. There are a lot more virtual meetings throughout the day so early morning and evening are critical times for actionable items.   And how do you engage with your colleagues? From the outset we set up daily calls to ‘check-in’ with the team and discuss action items for the day. We also introduced ‘virtual coffee-breaks’ twice a week and weekly morning meditation so that we stay connected.

Our first thought and priority was ‘how can we help? What can we do to assist industry at this time?’  So we set up our #AskTheExpert service so clients can engage with one of our consultants on COVID-related technical queries.  We then contacted industry representative bodies to offer support to their members.  We have taken part in a virtual audit Q&A session with BioPharmaChem Ireland, we are conducting a Virtual Audit webinar with PDA Ireland to share our insights with companies as to how to manage their internal/vendor management audit programmes during and post-COVID. We are hosting a COVID-related Supply Chain webinar with Nibrt in June and in August we are hosting a webinar for ISPE India on Virtual Audits.

For some of our services such as QMS development, it is business as usual.  For other typical ‘on-site’ support we looked at how we could adapt our service offering to fit the current circumstances.  Whereas we typically provide on-site training solutions, we quickly moved to a virtual setting to enable our clients to continue to deliver their annual training programs to their teams.  We also adapted our auditing and PAI services to a virtual model so that clients can continue to meet their compliance requirements and prepare effectively for expected post-COVID regulatory inspections.  We are assisting clients with their risk assessments of their supply chains where new suppliers have been on-boarded and new routes require assessment.

It is so dynamic – each day there is a new opinion/discovery relating to a potential vaccine. I have family working in the front line so am extremely grateful to see industry coming together to collaborate to fight COVID-19. It is heartening to see scientists working together to create a safer world for all.

I read a poem about the pandemic by Damian Barr which suggests that while we are all in the same storm, we are not all in the same boat. So for me lessons learned include: 1) That those fortunate enough to have an easier ride have a responsibility to care for those who are suffering most. I hope this message continues to resonate within society post-COVID and 2) that we always remember this time when nature truly reminded us that we are all visitors on this planet and as such it is our duty to respect it.