Pharmaceutical and life sciences expert Hobson Prior supports a client in setting up European facilities to help combat Brexit

The situation

One of our UK-based global pharmaceutical clients contacted us requiring support on a specific European project. At the time, they manufactured their products outside of Europe then completed QP release in the UK before distribution (65% of their products were distributed throughout Europe). In the event of Brexit, all products released in the UK would potentially need to be re-released when they crossed the border into the EU.

Understanding that this could lead to them losing business to EU-based companies, our client wanted to implement a proactive plan to combat future issues that could arise from Brexit. Their solution was to open two sites in Europe: one QP office in Belgium to complete European QP release and a distribution centre based in Poland. Our client had specific plans in place with project milestones and headcount for each stage but had no experience of hiring in Europe.

Hobson Prior’s solution

Firstly, we gained a detailed briefing from the client on the project background, plans, milestones and locations. This gave our team a thorough enough understanding of the business and project to allow us to sell it to candidates effectively.

The client then outlined more specifics around the hiring plans. They explained that this was a project that would run for roughly two years with the expectation of up to 40 new hires of both contract and permanent members of staff including consultancy support for areas such as validation. We were briefed on skill sets, level of experience, location, language skills, contract or permanent and what the expected hiring dates would be for each position.

After digesting the information, our Quality team begun to proactively talent pool in the relevant areas. We initially spoke with people inside our network that would consider opportunities in Europe and then began a targeted approach of headhunting local talent to build our network ‘in country’ (as we understood this was where the main bulk of permanent hires would come from).

We conducted much of this work up front, so as each milestone was hit and new hires were required, we were ready with a relevant shortlist of candidates.

The result

Our proactive approach meant we were able to support our client fully with the delivery of their project, on time and under budget. We were successful in helping them hire 15 contract and 10 permanent employees across the two sites, over the two-year project.

These positions were: 6 QA Officers, 4 QA Specialists, 2 QA Managers, 4 QPs, 3 RPs, 1 Head of Quality & 5 Senior QA Consultants.

The client was so impressed with our delivery within Quality in the early stages of this project, that they then liaised with other managers in the business to give us access to other areas of the project.

We went on to make successful contract and permanent placements within Regulatory, Technical Operations & Production.

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