Emergent Biosolutions Seeks Biomanufacturing Talent for Three Maryland Manufacturing Facilities at Forefront of COVID-19 Battle

Maryland’s leading vaccine manufacturer, Emergent Biosolutions (Emergent) is a global biopharmaceutical company that has become a key player in the BioHealth Capital Region’s (BCHR) fight against COVID-19. The company has a rich, twenty-plus year history as a Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) operating in the biodefense space; it is also actively supporting four COVID-19 vaccine candidate initiatives. 

Emergent’s growing portfolio of programs requires the hiring of dozens of full-time positions to support its three Maryland manufacturing facilities. Emergent is currently hiring for the following positions within their teams at several of its Maryland sites, including (click on each job category for more information):

Select Job Opportunities Include:

Syed T. Husain, Senior Vice President and Head of CDMO; BJ Hull, Vice President and GM (Baltimore and Rockville); Mike Maurer, Senior Director, Manufacturing (Bayview); Brian Cogan, Director, Manufacturing (Camden); Amanda Ilioff, Supervisor, Manufacturing (Bayview); and Ernest Williams, Senior Manager, Inspection & Packaging (Camden) recently participated in a virtual recruiting event to explore the many immediate job opportunities at the Bayview and Camden campuses in Baltimore, Maryland as well as the Rockville, Maryland location. Emergent’s Bayview facility is designated as a Center for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing (CIADM) by BARDA and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Emergent is growing rapidly and it’s a remarkable, exciting time to be part of a great team and culture that’s striving to protect lives through improved public health.

“We have three business units, including vaccines, devices, and therapeutics and we also offer a premier integrated CDMO that is heavily involved in the COVID-19 response. We’ve built our CDMO as an integrated biologics platform that provides an integrated solution. We take things to a whole new level where we can balance customer service and the capacity of a stand-alone CDMO with the capability of an embedded CDMO. Our CDMO is playing a significant role as part of Operation Warp Speed,” stated Husain.

“This network is spread across nine development and manufacturing sites but it really hits home in Maryland. Through this Maryland facility network we have five partnerships with innovators, including Operations Warp Speed,” he added. “This effort requires a lot of capability and infrastructure, but it’s nothing without our people and onboarding new talent.”

Emergent employs approximately 1,800 staff across 19 global locations; the company has 10 marketed products, 15 products in its pipeline and has a market cap of $3.1B with $1.1B of total revenue generated in 2019. Emergent’s marketed products include its Anthrax and Smallpox franchises and it has an Opioid and Chemical business groups as well as a Botulism group. 

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, Emergent has secured a manufacturing partnership with AstraZeneca to produce its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, valued at approximately $87M. In late April of this year, Emergent BioSolutions announced a partnership with Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to provide contract development and manufacturing services to support J&J’s COVID-19 vaccine efforts. The company also signed two contract agreements with Novavax, one to manufacture Novavax’s NanoFlu™ and the other to support Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate. 

“It’s an exciting time for Emergent’s Maryland manufacturing sites. Each of the sites is playing a vital role in the COVID-19 response,” shared Hull. “All four of the manufacturing suites in our Bayview facility have a COVID-19 vaccine. Already this year we’ve hired 120 new employees and we’re looking to hire 60 more at the Bayview facility. If you have upstream or downstream experience and want to be part of all the COVID-19 action, the Bayview facility is for you.”

Hull went on to discuss Emergent’s Camden, Baltimore facility, which has been a non-viral fill-finish site since 2014 but has been a CDMO fill-finish facility since 2000. There are 270 employees at the Camden site, and Hull expects this to grow to approximately 340 by the end of next year. The Rockville facility is a viral fill-finish facility; this site has 70 employees and this facility should double in staff size by the end of 2021, according to Hull. 

“It’s a great time to join a great and growing organization; the opportunities for advancement are significant in Maryland,” he added.

The virtual recruiting event also included segments featuring several current leaders and employees that have seen the company’s growth over the years firsthand.

“I joined Emergent in 2008. When I started there were about 100 people in Camden and now we are over 300. We’re excited to be part of the potential COVID-19 solution,” shared Brian Cogan, Director of Manufacturing of the Camden site. 

“We make and distribute products to over 70 countries around the world with our partners. We’re involved with many clinical trials for drug products and programs that can help others,” he added.

For a different perspective, Mike Mauer, Senior Director, Manufacturing at the Bayview facility had this to say about his first few months at Emergent: “If you’re looking for a role that’s the same everyday and comfortable this is not where you want to be. We are in a really exciting time where things are changing constantly. We are privileged to be working on four different COVID-19 vaccine candidates.”

“One of my favorite quotes from the Operation Warp Speed folks is that ‘all roads lead through Bayview,” he added. “There’s a lot of pressure, but also a lot of excitement. It’s been awesome and wildly challenging. We’re on the tip of the spear.”

Mauer’s colleague at the Bayview site, Amanda Ilioff, Supervisor, Manufacturing, has seen the company evolve over her three-year tenure at Emergent. 

Illioff stated, “The Bayview site has gone through a large change and we’re growing everyday and welcoming people from all different backgrounds. We’re moving at Warp Speed and we’re looking for people to add to our community and family.”

Ernest Williams, Senior Manager, Inspection and Packaging at the Camden facility, and Air Force veteran, has been at Emergent for four years. He shared, “We’ve hired people from all types of backgrounds; we’ve brought in some veterans…and people with manufacturing backgrounds, college students, and chemical, pharma and food industry professionals that bring skills that keep us on the edge of innovation. That’s the type of environment and culture we have here at Emergent.” 

“We have a set of core values that we talk about all the time at all of our global sites; this gives us a common language and creates synergies across our sites. ‘One Emergent’ teamwork is something I feel at our site. There’s not a lot of us and them…we are here for the common goal to produce life saving drugs and this drives our behavior,” added Cogan.

“There might be long days or hard days, but when we go home to our families we realize we are helping protect our families, our kids and Aunts and Uncles, it makes everything worthwhile,” shared Illioff.

“There is always open communication about how to handle the stress…there’s a sense of family amongst all the sites…we are one collaborative group of people and understand that there is quality of life that needs to be maintained for the team as a whole,” shared Williams.

“You don’t need to have a lot of experience. A lot of what you’re going to learn is hands-on. You need to be willing to learn, expand your horizons and fulfill the mission we’re working towards everyday,” shared Illioff. “We’re looking for people from all different levels of expertise and backgrounds.”

We save lives, we don’t make widgets,” emphasized Williams. “There’s continual growth, there’s new technologies, new processes, and engagement across the sites. It’s absolutely amazing to be part of Emergent.”

“We have direct interaction with the innovators and a long standing track record with the FDA. We have taken a proactive approach to make sure what we do is in lock-step from a quality and compliance standpoint. Everything that’s happening now is unprecedented. From a career opportunity standpoint, this is a chance to write the book on pandemic preparedness response,” stated Husain. 

“What drove me here was the culture. Emergent has come from humble beginnings — one site, one product, one customer— and some of our leadership has been here from the ground up. It is a dynamic family that welcomes with open arms. We’re in a growth phase. There is no other life science company out there that looks at products and services on an equivalent platform…we embrace that our manufacturing facilities produce our own products while also providing services to innovators. This mindset is very unique,” he added. “You can really have an impact on the industry at Emergent.”

“When I sit back and think about Emergent, what makes us different is our focus on leadership, people, and culture. Emergent has the right focus. We believe that if we set up the right culture, get the right people and keep them engaged, we will be successful. And that has proven to be the case with this organization.”   

Emergent’s Virtual Hiring event was highly informative, enabling virtual attendees to hear from a host of the company’s leadership from across the growing organization, while also receiving an in-depth overview of the important role each of Emergent’s Maryland’s sites play in the effort to overcome COVID-19 and protect and enhance 1 billion lives by 2030.

For more information on available Quality positions at Emergent, please visit their careers page or contact Erica Gourdine at erica(at)biobuzz(dot)io.

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