Maria Gomez is a second year student of Master's Degree in design Galenic and Manufacturing in the Pharmaceutical Industry (MDGFI) and is currently doing her paid internship at 3P Biopharmaceuticals. "This is a biotech industry that manufactures for third parties. They offered me a place in the GMP fermentation part within the production department and, specifically, my team works with prokaryotic cells," she explains.

"At first I was a bit scared to enter this industry subject , as it is a very different field from what I was used to seeing during my Pharmacy programs of study , where we delved into how to make pharmaceutical forms by mixing the active ingredient with the excipients," confesses Gómez. Unlike conventional pharmaceutical industries, María explains that 3P does not manufacture from raw materials, but rather produces the active ingredient, the protein, by fermenting different types of cells ( upstream part of the process) and purifying the product obtained ( downstream part of the process).

"On Master's Degree we had some lectures where we were introduced to concepts of biotechnology and biosimilars, but it is a very broad world that cannot be summarized in a couple of classes. You have to discover it. In my case, I have been fortunate to belong to a team of professionals with a lot of attitude and, thanks to them, I am gradually learning about biotechnology."

María Gómez says that this internship is giving her a much broader vision of the pharmaceutical industry, covering the basic knowledge of both the conventional pharmaceutical industry and the biotechnology industry: "I am sure that this experience is giving me a lot for my professional future. Expanding your knowledge financial aid helps you to think differently and to have much more to offer wherever you go".