Formulation Development Intern

At Johnson & Johnson, we believe health is everything. Our strength in healthcare innovation empowers us to build a world where complex diseases are prevented, treated, and cured, where treatments are smarter and less invasive, and solutions are personal. Through our expertise in Innovative Medicine and MedTech, we are uniquely positioned to innovate across the full spectrum of healthcare solutions today to deliver the breakthroughs of tomorrow, and profoundly impact health for humanity. Learn more at https://www.jnj.com

Job Function:

Career Programs

Job Sub Function:

Non-LDP Intern/Co-Op

Job Category:

Career Program

All Job Posting Locations:

Malvern, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Job Description:

This project will study effect of different real-world stresses on drug products in the J&J portfolio. Experiments will be designed and executed to mimic the intensity and duration of agitation that protein formulations experience during transportation in vials, IV bags, and syringes. A fundamental understanding of the impact of physical stresses on protein formulations will be gained by a thorough literature review as well as experimental data collection. 

A safe and effective drug product must be able to withstand a variety of different forces experienced during shipping, preparation, and administration. These forces include shear stress, mixing stresses, impact stresses (i.e. drop stress), and cavitation. Therapeutic proteins are inherently sensitive to these stresses and may form insoluble aggregates that can impact patient safety. During formulation selection, drug products are exposed to some of these stresses in bench-top shaking studies, however there is little understanding of how well these lab-based studies mimic the stresses during real shipping and transport. New studies have provided measurements of the duration and intensity of the real-world stresses experienced during transportation and have they depend on the acceleration and geometric orientation of the stress relative of the drug product. All of these stresses cannot be captured on a standard bench-top shaking plate, therefore a gap exists between developmental studies and real-world. This project will include the design of new bench-top studies in order to separately study the effects of mixing stress, shear stress, extensional stress and air-entrainment and utilization of particle characterization tools like dynamic light scattering (DLS), Flowcam, and MFI. By developing a comprehensive stress-specific framework for studying protein formulations, a better understanding of how different real world stresses impact drug product stability can be captured.  The findings and outcomes from this project will be leveraged across all protein formulations for conducting shaking studies to ensure product stability and patient safety.  

Majors: Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Biochemistry, Biomedical Engineering

Prerequisites (prior experience, demonstrated expertise, educational level): Previous lab experience is required for at least 6 months combined. Rising junior in undergraduate would be minimum education level but graduate student would also be acceptable.

Permanently authorized to work in the U.S., must not require sponsorship of an employment visa (e.g., H-1B or green card) at the time of application or in the future.  Students currently on CPT, OPT, or STEM OPT usually requires future sponsorship for long term employment and do not meet the requirements for this program unless eligible for an alternative long-term status that does not require company sponsorship.

Johnson & Johnson is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, disability, protected veteran status or other characteristics protected by federal, state or local law. We actively seek qualified candidates who are protected veterans and individuals with disabilities as defined under VEVRAA and Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act.

Johnson & Johnson is committed to providing an interview process that is inclusive of our applicants’ needs. If you are an individual with a disability and would like to request an accommodation,  external applicants please contact us via  https://www.jnj.com/contact-us/careers . internal employees contact AskGS to be directed to your accommodation resource.

Required Skills:

Preferred Skills: