We're going Ware?

Today, in my opinion, was one of the most educational days of the trip so far. We visited the Glaxo Smith Kline manufacturing facility in Ware, which is located in the English country side.  This is one of several GSK manufacturing sites.

Our day started out quite early and after we became experts on the British rail and tube system we arrived at our destination. Ware was a lot quieter than London and not really the setting you would expect to find a manufacturing facility that is making pharmaceuticals for over 130 countries and employing about 1800 people. The facility itself has a lot of history that was very interesting. For instance the grounds that are now GSK have been used in the pharmaceutical manufacturing business for over 100 years. In fact there are some original buildings still on site. It was used in WWII to make penicillin, and there is even an old road going through the site that dates back to the time when Britain was ruled by the Roman Empire. Anyway, this is just a little bit of the history lesson we received on our visit.

This particular manufacturing site produces about 30 different tablet pharmaceuticals at different times, and is the location where Advair was created and is still manufactured. The Ware facility is responsible for billions of dollars of product for GSK annually and is also one of their top research and development sites. So as you can see we were exposed to a lot of information in a short half-day visit. I could talk for days about everything we were told and shown on our tour of the facility but that would take way too long. What is important is that we were exposed to one of the first steps in the chain of patient care. While most of us will dispense a majority of the products we were shown, prior to this we didn't quite have a full understanding of actually how much time, people and resources go into producing that little tablet or inhaler. After visiting GSK I have a greater appreciation for the products that I will be working with to help patients live healthier lives. All in all, this was a great learning experience that I wish all pharmacy students had an opportunity to have. Mike Schaub