Quality Assurance
Quality Assurance (QA) is a vital function within all Pharmaceutical and Medical Device companies. Job titles within the QA area can vary a great deal across different companies, with titles including QA Associate, QA Officer, QA Specialist and QA Scientist, then progressing to QA Manager, QA Lead etc. The QA terms, especially at junior-to-intermediate level, are often quite interchangeable.
The QA team is typically responsible for ensuring that the quality standards and systems followed in the manufacture of drugs is in compliance with Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) and meets the specific quality standards laid out in the company’s Quality Management System (QMS). A QMS will include quality standards for internal audits, deviations, change controls, corrective actions, quality review reports, clean room monitoring, batch record review, and external documentation reviews.
A pharmaceutical QA professional’s responsibilities will include analysing the production process of pharmaceuticals, identifying areas where errors prevail, root cause analysis, observing every activity, monitoring the drugs being manufactured or packed for visible defects, testing the drugs (or at least interpreting the data from lab-based QC analysis), noting down observations gathered from the quality control process, and accepting or rejecting batches of drugs on the basis of samples (Batch Release). Quality Assurance teams will often be divided into different QA groups, with some more focused on batch record review while others are more involved in non conformance investigations and SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) updates.
Skills and Experience required for a career in Quality Assurance
- Science degree (this is not always essential)
- Experience gained in a GMP / ISO environment
- QA processes and systems
- Diplomacy
- Batch record processing
- Ability to multi-task
Salary Levels
QA salaries can vary enormously depending on what specific duties the person will be undertaking. If the role is a relatively entry-level or administrative one, focused on batch review or entry and processing of QA documents / data, salaries could be in the £18k - £24k range. Salaries can then increase steadily once you start to specialise in a particular area, especially if this means getting involved in hosting / conducting internal or external audits, continuous improvement initiatives, team leadership, or training. QA offers a varied and interesting career path and you could earn up to £40k in a non-management role and significantly more than this once you are in a management-level position.
East Sussex
East Sussex is a county in south East England to the south of London and bordered by the English Channel to the south. Major towns in East Sussex include Brighton and Hove, Lewes, Eastbourne, Rye and Hastings. Transport links in East Sussex are not particularly good as there are no motorways, but this doesn’t stop thousands of people visiting the beautiful coastline, rolling countryside and cosmopolitan Brighton, which means that the tourism industry is a major employer in this area. Other industries that are prominent in East Sussex include Pharmaceuticals, low carbon technologies, publishing, web & app design and Medical Communications. The otherwise quiet town of Lewes hosts the largest bonfire Night celebrations in the UK during which burning crosses and effigies are paraded through the town by 7 separate bonfire societies, watched by crowds of up to 80,000.
East Sussex has a School of Life Science which is a diverse, collaborative community with expertise in areas as varied as cancer biology, drug discovery, neurosciene and biodiversity. The University of Sussex is a leading research-intensive university near Brighton. We have both an international and local outlook, with staff and students from more than 100 countries and frequent engagement in community activities and services.
East Sussex has a small but growing life sciences and healthcare cluster of companies specialising in the research, development and manufacture of medical devices, biotechnology, poharmaceutical products and preparations and natural science and engineering research.
Daval International Ltd in Eastbourne focuses on the development and delivery of new treatments for neuro-degenerative, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.
Companies also supply specialist services and instruments for life science labs and biotechnology industries. These include temperature monitoring systems (QCBug) and bespoke software solutions (Biomedical Computing Ltd).
Famous people born in East Sussex: Jo Brand, comedienne and Katie Price, “celebrity”
East Sussex is a great place to further your career in life sciences. If you are a looking for pharmaceutical jobs in East Sussex, scientific careers in East Sussex or want to discuss cell therapy, gene therapy, ATMP, medical device, technology, biotech or pharmaceutical job opportunities in East Sussex, give our Next Phase team a call. The East Sussex area is continuing to expand as a centre for jobs in science, process development, technology, software development, project management, informatics, quality, reg affairs and supply chain.
At Next Phase we help people find new jobs in life sciences across the UK, Europe and USA. This page lists some of the job opportunities in East Sussex, and if you give us a call we can also talk to you about other scientific jobs, pharmaceutical career opportunities and the latest updates in cell and gene therapy and ATMP development in the East Sussex area.
