Quintiles - Amgen

RE 05-08-2013 03:52 PM, To the individual who is thinking about joining Quintiles-Amgen: Stay away from the Amgen arm of Quintiles and you might be OK. I hear that is better, but it's probably like every other CRO with the travel. The trade off for staying in your own locality (sleeping in your own bed at night) is a ton of protocols and a ton of sites. 10 protocols, 25 sites, and all of them are enrolling or in start up. You can do the math. If you want to get that report written, you are going to have to cut your site visit short. Did you monitor everything? I hope so! Because you won't have time to make up for it later, you will be hounded by your sites who have questions that need answers. Most of the Quintiles monitors that I know never even call the site back, never return an email, never offer assistance to the site. Unless the site is very, very good, there are probably deviations all over the place that go undiscovered. From a site perspective-- a Quintiles-Amgen monitor means you are ON YOUR OWN.....I've been monitored by Quintiles-Amgen, and I've been a Quintiles-Amgen monitor. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions. How can one person thoroughly provide quality monitoring with that kind of a workload? Might some shortcuts be taken to meet deadlines? Where would those shortcuts be taken? Are ICH GCP standards for review being adhered to? I sympathize with the newly recruited CRA who posted on this page! I think that many of us have been there... This industry needs an overhaul. Simply put, CRAs need to push back. Auditing charts for quality, providing guidance to sites, and ensuring quality data takes time. Writing detailed reports takes time. Everybody-- get used to it!! The more CRAs that you burn out, the less badly-needed experience you have out there! ....CRAs!!! Unite!!

 

Think twice. Seriously. Maybe you will be lucky and you will get a manager that will shield you from the "Evil Empire" for a while. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't take that chance myself. See if you can get into a different area of Q. A non-amgen area. Q + Amgen = early grave for most CRAs. (due to overwork and stress) I'm looking for a way out right now. If you negotiate well up front, you can make some money at Q. You will blow all of it by resourcing out everything else in your life: your family's cooking, cleaning, lawn service, transportation, gift-buying, etc. Ha ha! but true.

 

So I wonder if the individual thinking about joining Q-A joined? How is training going?

 

I was shocked to learn that LC is still in her position with Amgen/Quintiles. I left that model 2 years ago, she is the most clueless person I've ever known. I cannot believe she wasn't fired years ago.

 

I have an interview for a CRA position at the Q, and I believe it's in the Amgen arm.....
That's the description in the employees email signature who is interviewing me.
I've worked for Amgen at another CRO and they were evil.

I really want this CRA position though. Is it worth it? Just to get my feet wet in the CRA world and then move on after a year or two?

 

It really depends on your manager. If you would be under the AD with the initials LC, I would run. Run far and fast. Any other AD wouldn't be too terribly bad but they still work you like a dog. Good luck!