A conversation with Robin Livingston, Environmental Health & Safety Manager at CordenPharma, Colorado.
Robin Livingston has a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame. She started working at the CordenPharma Colorado facility (then Roche) in 2001 as an Environmental Engineer.
She later expanded her role to become Environmental, Health, and Safety Manager, helping her team obtain SafeBridge Potent Compound Certification in 2013.
BRW: What do you hope the audience will learn from this webinar?
If your company is looking to outsource or manufacture highly potent compounds, ensuring worker protection is obviously a priority. But how do you know that you or your CDMO are doing all you can to protect employees and reduce liability? Containment of highly potent compounds is a multi-faceted endeavor that goes far beyond the installation of good containment equipment. Through this webinar, I hope to motivate the audience to strengthen their own potent compound containment programs or their CDMO selection by approaching it from all directions, including Engineering Controls, a Containment Culture, Process Development, Occupational Health Pre-Planning, and an ongoing Containment Execution Cycle. At CordenPharma, we refer to these elements as the pieces of the “Containment Puzzle.” Ensuring that all of these pieces are in place will give you a more robust program, where employees can have confidence that they are protected, and your company and/or your customers will know that their liability is minimized.
BRW: What discussions do you look forward to having with the audience?
During the webinar we will discuss practical approaches to use when solving containment challenges. All facilities, all processes, and all products offer unique challenges, and I expect that the audience will have a wide variety of issues that they are currently addressing. I look forward to discussing ways to solve these challenges and help the audience select the appropriate CDMO or protect their workers by strengthening the softer, intangible elements of a highly potent containment program. Although all of these challenges are specific to individual circumstances, the approaches addressed can be applied to a wide variety of containment programs.
BRW: What do you enjoy most about your role?
I absolutely love my job, and it is really because of the outstanding people I get to work with every day. At CordenPharma, everyone is dedicated to both delivering quality product to our customers, and also to ensuring that safety is the priority. Employees at every level of the organization take pride in our role as a leader in containment of highly potent compounds, and I am so fortunate to work at a company that has that priority engrained in our culture. This job is also a lot of fun. As a CDMO, we are presented with a wide variety of projects, each with unique Environmental, Health & Safety challenges that are so gratifying to solve. I am never, ever bored at work!
BRW: How did you get into the industry?
When I got my Chemical Engineering degree, I hoped to eventually find my way into either the pharmaceutical industry or the environmental protection arena. So when I started working here at the CordenPharma Colorado facility (then Roche) in 2001 as an Environmental Engineer, I was thrilled to be able to combine both. Then when I was later given the opportunity to expand my role to Environmental, Health, and Safety Manager, I was immediately captivated by the world of highly potent compound containment, and it has remained one of my favorite parts of my job.
BRW: Where is your favorite place in the world and why?
The beach. Feet in the sand. Brain turned off. Listening to the waves crash. I am a busy working mother of three active children, so the vast majority of my life is filled with invigoratingly wonderful activity, but I don’t relax much. There are no beaches near Colorado, so when I get the opportunity, I fully appreciate the chance to go there to recharge.
Join Robin Livingston on 4th April for a webinar entitled ‘Critical Aspects of a Robust Highly Potent Compound Program’ at 8:00 MDT / 10:00 EDT / 15:00 BST / 16:00 CEST.