ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 8, 1997 TAG: 9704080059
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JENNIFER HUANG THE ROANOKE TIMES
The 11 employees will teach the next group of trainees in how to wear protective clothing and run the equipment.
Clad in special suits, booties and hoods and resembling astronauts connected to breathing gear, workers at Barr Laboratories are learning how to measure, mix and coat medicine.
Chosen from 2,000 applicants, the 11 manufacturing technicians are the first employees at Barr Laboratories Special Materials Manufacturings Area in Bedford County. On Monday they began learning how to operate machinery at the Forest facility of the Pomona, N.Y.-based company. Barr estimates it will invest $30 million in the new plant, most of the $40 million it decided last year to spend on expansion.
Barr develops, manufactures and markets generic drugs and had sales totaling $232 million in 1996.
Workers this week began 12 weeks of training. Most have no experience in manufacturing pharmaceuticals but all have worked with machinery.
"We picked these people based on their manufacturing experience because they will be dealing with some fairly sophisticated machinery here," said James Ahern, the company's human resources director. "In addition, this set of trainees were chosen because they are creative and communicative, which is essential since they will be the trainers for the next group of hires."
Barr will hire 250 more employees, in groups of about 10, to work in operations, distribution and chemistry. The next wave of employees will be selected next month to work in the warehouse and distribution section.
The company still is accepting applications, but it already has selected 500 who have met Barr's standards and have passed its tests. They will be the first to hear when the company is ready to hire more workers.
First on the training agenda is for workers to learn how to operate the machinery. They will learn how to dress in uniforms and breathing gear to protect themselves when they work in the area where cancer drugs are made. Exposure to the drugs can be harmful to workers.
"We're experimenting with a new dust-collection system to provide a dust-free environment," said Curtis Cozart, a manufacturing trainer.
Adjacent to Barr's 65,000-square-foot manufacturing facility, a 100,000-square-foot packaging and warehouse building is under construction.
In the manufacturing facility, there is a packaging area to bottle the drugs, a pharmacy area to weigh ingredients and a compounding area to mix them. After a batch is mixed, the drugs can be made into a tablet or capsule shape and then coated. Each batch contains 50,000 to 16 million tablets, depending on the product, and Barr expects to produce 750 batches a year at the new Forest facility.
Gerry Price, Barr's vice president of manufacturing and engineering, said that its first employees will conduct a trial run of its machinery in July. The facility should be ready for production by September.
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY THE ROANOKE TIMES. 1. Gerry Price (left),by CNBvice president of manufacturing and engineering with Barr
Laboratories, and Ed Moor, director of manufacturing, say the
Bedford County plant will hire up to 250 more workers. The company
hopes to be up and running by September. 2. (headshot) Curtis
Cozart. color.