Almac Clinical Services Scoops National Training Award

Almac Clinical Services’ training success story has won a well earned accolade in this year’s National Training Awards competition.

The award, which recognises outstanding achievement and success through training and development, was presented at a gala ceremony last night in Belfast City Hall.

Faced with increased competition from US companies, the company needed to expand its range of services to retain its place in the market and improve its European trade base.

Almac Clinical Services offers a full range of services associated with the clinical trial process, including manufacturing, packaging, labelling and global distribution. Successful trials result in the licensing of superior new drugs which ultimately lead to improved healthcare solutions for patients. The company works with over 450 companies worldwide including all the market leaders in the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors.

In 2004 senior managers agreed a plan to reposition Almac Clinical Services as a premier supplier of value added services in Europe. Central to this was a Drug Supply Management, (DSM), plan made up of a number of key projects.

The strategy involved training over 300 employees and required an investment of £196,000.

Zoë Young, Almac Clinical Services Learning and Development Officer, explained the strategy:

“We wanted to achieve four main business goals including a new marketing strategy for DSM, a standard process capability across the group and to implement portal and people development.

“The resulting training programme was designed to include a broad spectrum of learning and development skills, ranging from communication and management to specific technical, business and IT application.

“The benefits have included a record turnover in the past 12 months. Almac Clinical Services gained 48 new customers in 2005 and a further 12 in 2006. In the past 12 months, one in three recruitments has been via internal promotion/transfer. This is a strong indication of the success of our investment and staff development through this training programme.”

Sir Allen McClay, Chairman of Almac, said: “I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Zoë on her award, and thank her for her efforts on behalf of the entire Almac family. At Almac, the development of our staff is of prime importance, and this award recongises both Zoë’s efforts and our company’s commitment to its employees.”

If you are interested in attending an NTA information seminar in October, please log on to http://www.nationaltrainingawards.com for further details.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

1. 20 winners including employers, individuals, partnerships and training organisations received National Training Awards at a ceremony in Belfast City Hall on Tuesday 17 October 2006.

2. Almac Clinical Services is a division of the Almac Group comprising five closely integrated divisions offering a broad range of services from R&D, diagnostics, API manufacture, formulation development, through all phases of clinical trials to commercial scale drug product manufacture. Working with companies including all the world leaders in the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors, the five divisions are Almac Diagnostic Services, Almac Sciences, Almac Clinical Services, Almac Clinical Technologies and Almac Pharma Services. The company is headquartered in Craigavon, Northern Ireland. US operations are based in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and California. In Europe, as well as Craigavon, operations are also located in London and Edinburgh.

3. Almac Clinical Services Ltd holds an Investor in People Award.

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5. Media queries to the Department for Employment and Learning Press Office on 028 9025 7872.

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