Year: 2016-17

Company: Gilead Sciences

Liaison(s): Gerard Jenson, Thomas Upton

Gilead Sciences was founded in 1987 in Foster City, California with a vision to discover, develop, and commercialize innovative medicines in areas of unmet medical need. Since then, they have grown to become one of the world’s largest biopharmaceutical companies, with more than 8,300 employees across six continents. Gilead is currently developing a new facility in La Verne, CA that once completed will house the company’s warehouse, aseptic fill/finish manufacturing activities, Technical Services ( TS ), and other quality functions that have been operating from Gilead’s San Dimas location. The TS group has a unique R&D culture focused on commercial compliance and business needs, and utilizes their expertise, along with advances in industry technology, to improve production quality with their processes. The TS group is scheduled to be among the first departments to move to the new La Verne site, and the cross-functional nature of the team necessitates an integrative plan to seamlessly transfer operations with as little disruption as possible. The Gilead TMP team was tasked to identify better methods for internal organization to help streamline TS processes. This included lab organization with respect to a new sample management program, equipment management, and inventory management, as well as reagent and consumables organization. To accomplish this objective, the team identified current needs and concerns within the department by conducting interviews, and providing recommendations on lab configuration. In addition, the team developed a detailed transition plan that includes pre-move preparation, a transition timeline, updated standard operating procedures, and an inter-site sample transfer plan.