Science and Progress

Words by Tara Corristine

The biopharmaceutical sector in Ireland is making great strides to increase female participation in STEM, and retain that talent once it’s in the pipeline. We speak to three women who share the importance of schools programmes, role models and mentoring.

A career in science offers the opportunity to pivot across different functions such as operations, strategy and leadership, as evidenced by the roles undertaken by Joyce Fitzharris, General Manager at SK biotek.

Having studied Analytical Science in Dublin City University (DCU) and with two Masters Degrees under her belt – one in Environmental Protection from Sligo IT and the second in Emergency Management from DCU – Joyce Fitzharris’s first role was as an environmental chemist. “I started my career with Bristol-Myers Squibb, they were one of the first pharmaceutical multinationals to come to Ireland in 1964. I moved into Operational Excellence, an area that focuses on the techniques, tools and culture around continuous change and improvements.

I had no background in that but I was facilitated to learn. It’s been a theme throughout my career that whatever area you move into you will be supported, either in advance of that or as you move into it, not just the technical areas but the people skills and broader skills needed to lead in an area like that.” Fitzharris was then tasked with setting up a Programme Management Office to execute the strategic projects needed to grow the business. “It’s a forward-looking approach that gets the leadership team thinking beyond their own function: where does the company need to be in five years, ten years? It became apparent that the site in Swords would be divested from the BMS network but rather than it being seen as a negative, we saw it as a chance to reinvent ourselves.”

SK biotek, a contract development manufacturing organisation (CDMO), acquired the company in January 2018 and for Fitzharris, it’s an invigorating phase in an ever-evolving career. “New colleagues that have come into the organisation have shared their knowledge, it’s been very educational and exciting. We are now working with multiple customers, and these new relationships are akin to a partnership.”

The changes continued apace and in December 2018, Joyce was appointed to lead the Staff function which encompasses the business support departments of HR, IT, Legal, Operational Excellence and Strategy.“We have two leads on the site, the head of the operational side of the business, and my side of the business. I also have a reporting role, sharing how the business is doing with our owners, a division called SK holdings, and it’s another very interesting side to my job.”

Understanding legal, HR and IT functions may not have been the original remit of an environmental chemist but Fitzharris points out that at director level, the fundamental skill is leadership. “You have the experts in the team, you don’t need to have all of the knowledge yourself, it’s about getting the best out of them, seeing where the gaps are and developing their progression. Once you’ve honed those skills you can transfer into leading any function.”

Seeing other women in senior roles, and being mentored by them affirmed the leadership possibilities for Fitzharris. “I had seen how career progression in Bristol-Myers Squibb was possible, they were very encouraging through role modelling, senior female executives and vice presidents. A previous GM, Susan Hynes, came up through the quality route. Mentoring was formal and informal, I had everything from an official mentor to those people I had coffee with who encouraged me. In Ireland, we are ahead of the curve. We have seen women in science at the top of the ladder here, it would be nice to see them expanding out into the CEOs of global companies.”

As Ireland’s CDMO cluster expands, organisations that offer support mechanisms such as flexible working arrangements will benefit by attracting and retaining key talent, she says. “CDMOs could build or buy anywhere in the world but they are coming here precisely because of the talent and the knowledge of the world-class people that we have, and what we offer. We have a huge amount of women working here but how do we sustain that and continue to attract that?” Career breaks are just some of the agile working options available to SK biotek employees along with flexible hours and remote working. “It’s okay to tell colleagues that they can take time out: two years over a 25-year career, that’s no time. It’s down to organisations to help everyone to upskill as quickly as possible when they’re coming back. It’s fantastic when you see women progressing through the organisation, it’s a very rewarding part of my job.”

Karine Egan, Medical Director Ireland at AbbVie, believes that schools initiatives and leadership programmes are the way to encourage women into STEM, and keep them there.

STEM Paths, a recent initiative undertaken by AbbVie, looked at how Irish industry, educators and professional bodies can work together to foster greater engagement in STEM disciplines by highlighting female role models. The organisation developed the Back to School for STEM initiative which sees employees from AbbVie’s five Irish offices and manufacturing plants visiting schools to talk about their career experience. “It’s hugely rewarding,” Karine Egan tells us. “You see the interest and curiosity being ignited, then and there. A lot of female students probably don’t feel confident going into the STEM subjects and I think so much work has to be done at that level.” Another recommendation of the report was to share the diversity of roles available across the sector. “We have a great university system that produces high-quality science graduates. It’s getting young women to want to go into those careers in the first place that is the problem. If you can’t see it, you can’t be it and that’s the truth of it. I’m a medical director in a pharmaceutical company and when I was at Leaving Certificate stage, I didn’t know that that kind of job existed, but I knew that I loved science.”

It’s so important, she says, to impart that the scale of multinationals now based in Ireland means that a science qualification is a foundation for a variety of roles. “I remember one of my lecturers saying that science teaches you to question andthink critically, and ultimately it’s a platform to go from there into any career. These multinationals are so huge, you may go in under one function but as you develop skills and realise what part of your job you are passionate about, that is where you will really excel. That’s what we need to impress on people more, you may go into science and realise that you are really good at business and that pharma is a career that combines the two.”

“One of the functions I oversee is clinical trials in Ireland, and that’s amazing for me because if I sit down to read a research protocol, that pulls me out of the business strategy world and suddenly I’m immersed in what sparked my interest in science in the first place. It’s nice to have a career where you continue to develop strategic and management parts, but still stay close to the science.” Creating a supportive work environment can help to retain that female talent once it is in the pipeline, and earlier this year AbbVie was listed as the second Best Large Workplace in Ireland, and was recognised as one of the 13 Best Workplaces for Women, by the Great Place to Work Institute. This recognition is no doubt due to programmes such as AbbVie’s Women Leaders in Action (WLA) that was set up to support the development of female employees and there are currently over 200 members in Ireland across five sites. “We have a huge focus on WLA to encourage women to go for those promotions and develop those skills. We have a formal mentoring programme, someone who is a layer or two above you who can navigate for you and show you what is possible. If you don’t have that, you could get stuck in the day-to-day and not think of your five-year plan. It feels informal because it’s coffees and chats.”

WLA is not just for women and is open to all employees. “In a company like AbbVie, women are very supported, and it’s very much a meritocracy at the same time. It’s meritocracy based because it’s about the work that you produce. I find it to be fair and balanced.”

One of the WLA activities is career returners events. “It needs to be recognised that women will have families, and they should feel supported to do that. We should be encouraging people to have their children during their careers and not see it as a break. It should be accepted. We had a career returners event in Sligo recently for exactly that purpose because it gets to a point, especially if you have a couple of children, where you begin to wonder is it worth going back to work, and it’s very hard for those women when they are returning to the workforce and there should be more companies focusing on attracting those women as employees. There is demand for it judging by the huge number of people who turned up at our event. It’s an unmet need that needs to be addressed.”

Orla Cunningham, Senior Director, BioMedicine Design at Pfizer, credits self-belief combined with strong organisational supports for her success in the sciences.

“I was always encouraged to do what interested and excited me. I have three brothers and my parents never treated me any differently, I never felt like there was anything I couldn’t do. My older brother is a neuroscientist in academia and I followed in his footsteps, starting with a general natural sciences degree in Trinity and specialising in Biochemistry.”

In 2006, she joined Wyeth, helping to establish a new early-stage preclinical drug discovery research group, and in 2009, Wyeth was acquired by Pfizer. “We set up the lab from scratch with three people and now our group has grown to 24. We have people from a variety of educational backgrounds, disciplines and countries. It’s a very young group because preclinical drug discovery is a relatively new field in Ireland, and they are full of energy and ideas and enthusiasm.”

Cunningham heads up the BioMedicine Design group in Dublin and sits on the global leadership team, a path she believed was always available to her. “In Ireland, I think women are very well represented in the life sciences, across both academia and industry. I’ve always been very lucky in the mentors that I’ve had, from my PhD supervisor in Trinity to my first boss here in Pfizer who taught me a lot about the principles of antibody engineering.”

She took advantage of the company’s internal supports, including its European leadership development programme, Female Aspiring Talent in Europe (FATE). “Women across the European organisation, and across operational functions, are brought together for a series of workshops on personal development, from working on visibility and impact to support on how to achieve work-life harmony. The programme provides one-to-one coaching on leadership and helps to establish mentoring relationships with experienced leaders across the organisation. Participation in FATE was a fantastic opportunity for me to grow and build a really supportive network across the business.” A similar achievement programme for high-potential females in Pfizer Ireland was recently launched.

These internal structures and supports have seen the organisation evolve and grow to reflect modern society. “I definitely see the difference from when we started in Grange Castle Business Park. We celebrated ten years on site in September and I can see the change happening. We have a new site lead and a really engaged, diverse leadership team which includes a number of great female role models. “I think in the past people tended not to talk so openly about family in the work environment, but these days it is a part of everyday conversation. I can see this change across the broader scientific community.”

Attracting and nurturing the next generation of scientists is a role Pfizer takes very seriously with engagement in educational outreach through the Junior Achievement programme, a Kids 2 Work initiative, Science Week events and undergraduate workshops across Irish universities including Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin and Technological University Dublin.

Cunningham has come to appreciate the importance of representation with young students and enjoys the opportunities she's had to act as a STEM ambassador. "My experience in my career to date has been a very inclusive and supportive one. I definitely feel that there is much better representation and that's bound to have really positive knock-on effects."