By Nathan Rubbelke, St. Louis Business Journal | October 25, 2021
A pair of St. Louis organizations have teamed up with a $32 billion life sciences giant to create a new education program designed to boost the region’s biotechnology workforce.
Innovation hub BioSTL, St. Louis Community College and Waltham, Massachusetts-based Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE: TMO) have partnered to launch a new five-day biotechnology professional development program. The Bio-manufacturing Research and Technical Training program is being offered through St. Louis Community College and its curriculum was crafted with the help of Thermo Fisher, which has operations in St. Louis.
The curriculum being offered through the professional development program is designed to provide existing biotechnology sector employees with a “crash course” to expand their understanding of the drug development and manufacturing process. The groups behind the pilot program said it provides companies with a “cost-effective” option to upskill and reskill their existing workforce and could be especially beneficial to employers amid the current labor shortage.
“With this barrier in mind, employers need to be more strategic about growing talent, particularly with middle-skills jobs – those that require more than a high school diploma but less than a four-year college degree, such as a quality control analyst or a laboratory technician – being the most in-demand,” said Jeff Pittman, chancellor of St. Louis Community College.
For Thermo Fisher, its involvement with the new training program comes as it targets expansion in St. Louis, where it operates a biologics drug substance manufacturing facility. The company has about 700 employees locally and plans to add another 200 employees in the next two years as it increases its St. Louis footprint, said Paul Jorjorian, vice president and general Manager of biologics.
The first iteration of the new training program started Friday and its students include workers from Thermo Fisher. A second cohort is expected to take place early next year. Organizers of the new training initiative hope it eventually has a regional reach, with the expectation that other bioscience companies will use it as tool to educate their staff. The new training program is housed at St. Louis Community College's Center for Plant and Life Sciences, which is located at BRDG Park on the campus of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center.
BioSTL, St. Louis Community College and Thermo Fisher said development of the new education program is a “direct response” to the STL 2030 Jobs Plan, which was published earlier this year by private sector business group Greater St. Louis Inc., and said St. Louis’ talent development efforts needs to include partnerships between local employers and education and workforce training organizations.
“The partnership among St. Louis Community College, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and BioSTL is a blueprint to model for other companies and other industries,” said Jason Hall, CEO of Greater St. Louis. “This is a proven recipe for success: investing in the development of training programs for other high-demand STEM occupations will expand program capacity, improve student access and address rising regional demand for biotech workers."
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