5 Questions with Peter Alexander, Senior CMC Consultant, Alira Health

Learn all about Peter Alexander, Senior CMC Consultant at Alira Health. Peter is our Community Ambassador at BioBuzz!

September 18, 2024

This article is part of our 5 Questions With series, one of our ongoing People & Places Features. We love it because despite the consistent questioning, the answers are all unique. Be sure to FOLLOW us on LinkedIn to tell us what you think.

1) What did you want to be when you grow up? How’d you get from there to here?

When I was a young kid, I had a fascination with airplanes and dreamed of becoming a pilot. By the time I was in sixth grade, that dream evolved into a desire to design them. In high school, my interest shifted from aeronautical engineering to architecture, but I ultimately circled back to engineering when I applied to college. After a semester in a biomedical engineering program, I switched to biology, as biochemical engineering wasn’t yet an established field in the mid-1970s.

A BS in Biology in 1976 was not a vocational degree, so I pursued graduate work in Microbiology, which led to post-doctoral fellowships in molecular biology and fermentation technology.

My first “real” job was with a small start-up in Massachusetts, where I worked on fermentation process development for a portfolio of “targeted toxins” for cancer immunotherapy. Through a series of roles with increasing responsibility, I expanded my expertise to include GMP manufacturing, purification technology, mammalian cell culture, plasmid DNA vaccines, and technology transfer. After 32 years in the biopharmaceutical industry, I retired and started my CMC consulting business.

2) How are you helping to build a more connected community?

My outreach in STEM began in Massachusetts, where I mentored middle school students through a program sponsored by the Boston Museum of Science. I also conducted “kitchen microbiology” demonstrations at my sons’ elementary school. My company supported several of us in teaching for a biotechnology certificate program at a local community college running a jobs retraining initiative. After moving to Maryland, I delivered guest lectures in biotechnology for a friend at CCBC in Catonsville.

Then I met Chris Frew.

I started collaborating with Chris and the BioBuzz team a few years ago, creating short video presentations to introduce biotechnology to a broader audience within the growing BioBuzz community. More recently, I’ve been involved in their Ambassadors of Buzz program, where I continue to support these efforts by helping to educate, nurture, and grow the future and emerging talent population within the community and the industry.

3) What are currently buzzing about? Anything and everything…

I’m getting plenty of professional buzz from my consulting clients, who are advancing biopharm products ranging from peanut allergy vaccines to radioimmunoconjugates for various oncology targets. The work is intellectually stimulating and encompasses all aspects of biopharm CMC operations, from CDMO selection to IND writing.

When I’m not working, I enjoy tending to my gardens and battling the constant onslaught of weeds. Lately, I’ve been reducing my tomato crop into homemade salsa. If that’s not relaxing enough, I love taking walks in my local park and spending evenings with my wife at outdoor concerts or watching movies.

4) If you could travel back in time – what early career advice would you give yourself?

Beyond knowing that I was a STEM guy, I had no real clue what I wanted to do when I was in school, as evidenced by my swervy career thoughts. It wasn’t until I got to college that things started to come into focus.

Even then, there were forks in the road where I needed to choose a path: which post-doc to accept, which career path to pursue—academic professorship or industry professional.

I made the best decisions I could with the information I had at the time, and it all worked out in the end. I do wonder sometimes what would have happened if I’d taken a different fork, but you can’t run that experiment except in the movies.

The advice to myself—and to others, I guess—would be to trust your instincts, choose a path, and work hard to be successful on it. But at the same time, stay true to your instincts and don’t be afraid to switch paths when a more suitable one appears.

5) The fun (and rotating) one… Where in the world is Peter Alexander?

My wife and I love to travel, and one of our favorite activities is attending food and wine festivals in exciting locales. A prime example is the South Beach Wine and Food Festival in Miami, which we hope to revisit this year since we missed the Santa Fe Wine and Chili Festival.

We also need to reschedule our trip to Provence that was postponed due to COVID-19. In the meantime, we’ll be spending time with our grandkids and possibly making an off-season trip to the Jersey Shore.