One of the major initiatives by Oxford College in 2010 was the construction of a Pharmaceutical Plant inside the college and the launching of two important new programs: Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Technologist and Pharmaceutical Quality Assurance /Quality Control (QA/QC) Technologist.

Both programs, which are about a year long, offer students training to work in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. According to a recent report, the Canadian pharmaceutical market, which had a total revenue of $26.6 billion in 2010, is the eighth largest in the world, and is the fourth fastest growing after China, the US and Spain.

To meet the needs of these industries, Oxford College rebuilt one section of its campus into a pharmaceutical plant. Over ten rooms are inside – each with their own high-tech machinery that create capsules, pills and a wide variety of other medicines. 60 000 tablets can be created at this plant in a typical shift.

The construction of the pharmaceutical plant was carried out during the summer of 2010, and involved a rigorous process of following safety regulations and ‘Good Management Practices’. Besides creating separate rooms for each of the machines, the rooms had to be engineered so that the air pressure would prevent any possibility of contamination. Even the floor was specially built in order to prevent dust from being spread around.

After this was completed, Oxford launched the two new pharmaceutical programs, headed by Feroz Anjum (Pharmaceutical Manufacturing) and Sim Maharaj (Pharmaceutical QA/QC). The Pharmaceutical Manufacturing programs teach students how to operate machinery and create medicines “all the way from dispensing to the finished product,” according to Mr. Anjum. The program emphasizes the safety aspects involved in this industry – for the personnel, equipment and products.

The students in this program comment that 65% of the training is hands on, working in the lab or on the machines. Sedrick Samuda explains the most challenging aspect is getting the formula for the drug product to be within specifications. “If you don’t get it right there with the mixture,” he says, “everything will be screwed up.”

The Pharmaceutical QA/QC program involves two components – documenting and evaluating the products, and testing the production system and making sure the process is following standard operating procedures. Mr. Maharaj explains that pharmaceutical production is “not like an assembly line,” and you need highly-skilled and trained professionals to oversee its functions.

Oxford College is very confident that it has developed a pair of programs which will appeal to the more than one hundred pharmaceutical companies which operate in the Toronto-area. Kim MacDonald, our Career Counsellor, remarked that a Toronto-based pharmaceutical company contacted her a few weeks earlier to say they were looking to fill 17 positions – Kim only had four Pharmaceutical Manufacturing students who were ready to take those jobs! This is very exciting for the current students – Kevin McLoggan, who recently started the program, says “the skill is in high demand. Employers are after you.”