Richard Tarrant
Contract Qualified Person
As part of my undergraduate degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Kent I undertook an industrial placement at the GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Biopharmaceutical Centre of Excellence for Drug Discovery (BiopharmCEDD) in Beckenham, working within Analytical Development. After graduating, I worked for a short period of time at the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) as a European Coordinator supporting licencing and variations applications and requests. I then moved onto Lonza Biologics (Slough) where I worked within Purification Development as a study director of virus validation studies before embarking on a PhD in Biochemical Engineering at University College London (UCL). After completing my PhD, I joined the Clinical BioManufacturing Facility (CBF), first as Quality Control Manager, then as Quality Assurance Manager and since 2018, after completing training and my viva assessment, I have been working as a Qualified Person (QP). As a QP, I have been involved in the final certification and release of various CBF products, including the first COVID-19 vaccine to enter trials in Europe/UK.