New Product Development Scientist - Consumer Healthcare Review

Due to COVID I was based at home so my role involved emailing and meeting external partners to organise research and researching literature for future laboratory experiments. When I was in the lab I was making solutions, testing them and taking photos, as well as writing up a lot of data. Then I would present my data to the project team and tell them the importance and relevance of my work to the wider project.

When I was in the lab I was given responsibility for my own project and reaching the outcomes by myself through planning experiments and having my work approved by appropriate team members. In a non-covid world the student would be given a lot more responsibility and would be working a lot more independently as well as ordering chemicals, writing risk assessments and planning their experiments. I was given responsibility to organise testing with some external partners at several points which meant ensuring the protocols were clear and could be followed precisely.

Yes! I've learned how to formulate, what is important in formulation development and all about working in business. I've also had the opportunity to learn communication skills through leading team meetings, presenting my research and organising virtual student events. Organising big events such as a virtual step challenge was challenging but allowed me to meet lots of new people across the company and help me to become more confident in speaking to new people.

There was a mentor scheme set up the IP Unite group and my manager met me weekly which really helped me as we could find little things for me to do whilst I was at home. The wider team had a coffee morning each week where we met and that was really nice as people would offer support if you needed it. My university supervisor met me every 4 weeks and met my line manager a few times to ensure I was on track to complete my placement.

The company is so supportive, they want IPs to succeed and love hearing about the work we do and have organised a day of presentations for us to present our work on teams. There is lots of training available including online courses and ERGs that you can join and go to panel discussions. I particularly enjoyed the IP Forums where every IP was given the opportunity in a group to present about the work done in their department.

I enjoyed my placement but it was challenging due to working from home for a lab based placement, it meant I did a lot of admin work and reading presentations rather than learning lab skills. I have enjoyed being able to learn lots about working in industry and I would definitely consider working in NPD again in the future if I was able to work in person in the labs. Oral care was really interesting as everyone uses toothpaste daily and there was so much more science than I realised!

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