chemist

senior quality assurance specialist

qc technician

research scientist

senior quality analyst

Nitto Avecia

A typical day at work includes a minimum of four changes in "highest priority".

Those in management positions do not know how to manage instrument and personnel resources effectively. The AD and QC departments are vastly under-staffed, and the time-lines/goals are mostly unrealistic. Even though the managers know this (and daily complain about it), they refuse to do anything about it. As a result, the departments (especially AD) frequently miss deadlines. Furthermore, due to lack of planning, projects that are given a reasonable time-frame are started close to the deadline instead of right away.

Co-workers in the AD department at the analyst level are friendly and helpful, and great to work with. My aisle-mates are also very friendly to converse with and help the days to go by with some enjoyment. These are the best parts of the job. The majority of my co-workers hate working here and are actively searching for a new job. Those with experience and expertise are usually ignored by management, which results in avoidable project failures. Often times, because of this and due to severe lack of planning, runs have to be repeated multiple times. Unfortunately, even though it is frequently the fault of management, the analysts and chemists are blamed for problems. Politics seem to be pervasive and detrimental to productivity. This is particularly true among the managers and in hiring. Several competent and valuable temp employees have been let go and/or passed over in favor of far less competent, but politically favorable temps.

Training is an unfortunate disaster and consists of 1) single observation of another "trained" employee and 2) single "assisted" run by trainee. There is little actual demonstration of skill required to operate the instruments effectively, and training is not performed by instrument experts. Often times, the trainer is someone who was just recently "trained".

The hardest parts of the job are dealing with the politics and dealing with the frustration of a culture that promotes rapid turn-out of sub-par methods and data analysis. Quality is eschewed in favor of rapid turn-out, but runs often need to be repeated multiple times as a result. If the time was taken at the beginning to properly plan and/or develop methods of higher quality, time would be saved at the back-end, as fewer "re-dos" would need be performed.

I have learned a number of new aspects to analytical techniques with which I am familiar. This is primarily from reading done on my own initiative to produce quality methods, not from training given by my superiors. I have also learned a few new techniques.

The company does not seem to value its employees. Recently, shortly after announcing that it was 1) suspending 401k matching, 2) eliminating company-sponsored lunches, 3) cancelling the holiday party, and 4) requiring employees to contribute more to their health care insurance due to financial difficulties, the company announced that it had purchased a building (for $8 million) that it was renting and that it had acquired another company.

Overall, unless there are significant changes, I would not recommend working for this company.

This job has been really great so far.  95% of the people I work with are extremely nice and helpful and the culture is really good  (i can’t speak on ALL departments, but it seems like other departments are the same way).  There are a few people that aren’t great, but you’ll find that anywhere. I wish people were a little more positive,  but I can’t change everyone.  

  I don’t agree with everything corporate says and that is annoying but again, I feel like that’s just part of working for a company that has a corporate location halfway across the country.  I love my direct manager but some of the upper management within the building seem like they need replaced in order for this company to make any money.  There were recently some layoffs and that definitely put a damper on things, but I’m hoping that this year will be better money-wise. 

Starting  pay isn’t great and I have yet to get an increase in pay (coworkers have said that in the past, raises were given out more often and bonuses were also given out each year … but no bonuses this year).  But I had very little to no experience when I was hired, so I guess I can’t complain too much about the low starting pay.  

I work first shift and when the work day is over, work is over.  Overtime opportunities sometimes come up but not too often.  If some sort of process is taking longer than expected and you need to leave, it’s not a huge deal to just tell your manger that you can’t stay late.   I have never worked a weekend.  After my contract to hire ended (6months) I  got 20 days of PTO for the year, which is awesome! manufacturing chemist is a fun job but also hard work.  Some days are super hard but others are very boring, it just depends on the production schedule.  
There is a lot of miscommunication and lots of problems at the company,  but nothing that an entry person like me can solve, so I just do what I can.  

If you’re thinking about working here, have a good attitude and be ready to learn!  We like having fun and joking around but we also get work done!  Also, be ready to do things that don’t make any sense but have to be done anyway.  It’s annoying but it’s just how GMP is.  I find that having a positive attitude makes the job so much better.  There will be frustrating days, but it’s really not bad at all in the grand scheme of things.  I think it’s a sick job and I would recommend it!  

Good Place to Learn, Flexible timing, friendly and smart employees in Analytical, QC and Process Development Groups

The Cons:
The senior Management has a disconnect with the day to day operations of the company. For that reason, they constantly make bad decisions. 
The Development groups are overwhelmed and are forced to sacrifice quality for quantity. 
Hard work and Ethics are not appreciated or respected.
The attrition rate is very high, and the company has lost the most valued employees in recent years but the management doesn’t realize that there is a problem. 
Limited growth opportunities. Forget about promotions.
Management change your job responsibilities without consulting or even raising your salary. 
Not recommended for experienced scientists.

The company is led by extremely weak leadership - People that don't have the aptitude or experience to hold the positions that they do. Leadership is focused on revenue at the expense of quality of manufacturing and testing. Recruiting consists of "bait and switch" to con talent into dead end positions with no laboratory support and incompetence at the executive level.


A bad place to work. Management in certain areas is clueless on how to manage people. All departments don't work under the same leadership team. So that adds to a toxic environment. Favoritism is an issue at all companies, but here management head hunts if you have an opinion that is different from theirs, and there is no open door policy to talk about issues. The HR department is by far the best part of Avecia. I wouldn't recommend to my worst enemy.

I took this job as a filler until I moved to another state. It was clear 2 weeks in that everyone hated their job, manager, hours, and work. It's a GMP environment but the training program is non-existant and they will give you tasks that you aren't sufficiently trained on. I ended up leaving because my manager told me I should be ashamed to take bereavement just because both of my grandparents passed away and that by taking time off I was letting the team down. HR heard about it but of course did nothing. If you care about yourself don't work here.

The fast growth of the business has changed the culture of the company into a very fast paced work environment. The small company  environment no longer exists. My current position is very demanding with a heavy workload. The aggressive construction schedule for a new addition of manufacturing space and qualification of new equipment requires some employees to work nights and weekends to try and keep up with the additional workload.
I have gained a great deal of great experience working in this gmp facility  during my career at Avecia.

Nitto Denko Avecia is a Pharmaceutical CMO (contract manufacturing organization) that specializes in Oligonucleotides with sites in Cincinnati, OH; Milford, MA; and San Diego, CA. This is a very young and fast growing field; however, this company is currently poorly managed. There is a large amount of politics in the middle management that get in the way of actual work. I believe things are changing and it will get better in time. The company has growth potential, and intends to stay in the CMO market.

At first things were slow mainly because of a lab revamp, which caused a shut down. For approximately 1 month zero training happened as the company fought hard to change there culture, meanwhile existing management fought otherwise. Attributing factors to low ratings are the lack of communication from management. Work hours, shifts, lacks of shifts, and expectations aren't quite lucid. As far as training, good luck, because everyone is so busy fighting potential fires. There is an ominous low morale and a matching high turnover.

The work is ok.  The job requires people with bachelor's degrees.  However, I don't believe it should.  There's no critical thinking or any real chemistry skills required in order to perform the job well.  That being said, the work is fairly easy and the pay is decent.

Management, however, is a different story.  None of the managers have any real management experience and it shows.  Some of them shouldn't have been promoted to manager in the first place. 

There is also no real communication between departments, which leads to big problems constantly.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Chemist 8 salaries reported	$55,913 per year
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