Managing Risk in Pharmaceuticals Company - Dechra Pharmaceuticals PLC Group

This report discusses the hazards and risks associated with Dechra Pharmaceuticals PLC Group, a veterinary products manufacturing company. It explores the risk management process, chemical and health hazards, risk matrix, risk register, and risk assessment plan. The role of technology in reducing errors and improving efficiency is also evaluated.

1. INTRODUCTION
Risk Management refers as the identification, assessment and prioritization of risks
followed by economical and interconnected execution of resources in order to reduce, monitor and
control the probability or influence of unfortunate events (Bodnar and et. al., 2011). In this report,
the given organisation is Genera which is a part of Dechra Pharmaceuticals PLC Group. The
company is engaged in production, research and development, marketing and sales of feed
additives, veterinary medicines and variety of care products for animals. This report includes
hazards exist in pharmaceuticals company and the risks associated with those. A risk register and
risk matrix are developed and risk assessment plan is analysed to minimize errors and mitigate
risks. At last, role of technology in reducing errors and efficiency of risk assessment plan is
evaluate in the report.
Hazards can be defined as the agent which has the potential or ability to harm or danger to
a vulnerable target (Bruder and Roncalli, 2012). These will lead to an adverse consequence if
someone is expose to it. Dechra Pharmaceuticals PLC Group is an England based veterinary
products manufacturing company that offers variety of feed additives, medicines and care
products for animals. It employs around 220 employees, of whom approximately 75 percent are
women who are working in quality control, production and research and development laboratories.
Risk Management Process
This process is about managing the risks associated with the project. It helps in mitigating
the adverse outcomes of the main goals and objectives so that opportunities can be created. It
helps in developing policies and procedures which can be applied to reduce the magnitude of
risks. There are number of stages such as identification, analysis, evaluation of the risks, treating
them with appropriate solution followed by reviewing the risks.
As the company engaged in using large amount of chemicals in the production process, it creates
some hazards for its employees. These hazards are mentioned below:
Chemical Hazards: In context of Dechra Pharmaceuticals PLC Group, it uses chemicals in
manufacturing of medicinal products that cause harm to employees as well as environment (Chen
and Yano, 2010). For example: Ethidium bromide which is a highly hazardous compound that may
have teratogenic or carcinogenic impacts. Exposure to this compound is possible by ingestion,
inhalation or absorption by skin. Exposure to acute ethidium bromide may cause irritation on
exposed surfaces like eyes, mouth, skin or upper respiratory tract. Apart from this, flammable and
volatile liquids used in organisation are vaporize when these exposed to room temperature, this
cause atmospheric pollution. The explosions and fire accidents can occur due to steam of
chemicals which tend to disperse rapidly in environment that cause negative impacts in terms of
loss of lives and property. The people who will be affected by such chemical hazards are the
employees and customers to a major extent. This is ultimately have a significant effect on the
government.

Health Hazards: As the company is using chemicals in large amount, it creates health
hazards for its employees. The properties present in chemicals influence adversely on health of
people working in pharmaceutical company. Direct exposure to chemicals causes various health
issues for employees which may be long or short term (Franch Gutiérrez and et.al., 2013). These
issues can be related to skin irritation, asthma, headache, cancer, nerve damage, dermatitis etc.
Careful handling of chemicals is very necessary within Dechra Pharmaceuticals PLC Group as a
minor mistake may leads to major adverse impact on health of workforce. As more numbers of
women are employed within organisation, some chemical may impact their health along with their
baby's health if they are in pregnancy.
Risk Matrix: This matrix is used at the time of risk assessment in order to define the risk
level by taken into consideration the category of likelihood or probability against the consequence
severity category (Gibson, 2014). This matrix helps management of Dechra Pharmaceuticals PLC
Group to increase the risk visibility and taking appropriate decisions.
Risk register is characterised as a tool for documenting and managing risks. The main
purpose of preparing risk register in Dechra Pharmaceuticals PLC Group is to provide managers
with list of identified risks so that appropriate actions can be taken to mitigate those risks
(Goldberg and Palladini, 2010). The risk register for company is mentioned below:
Risk
descriptio
n
Likelih
ood of
occurr
ence
of risk
Impac
t if
risk
occur
s
Severi
ty
Owner Consequenc
e
Mitigating action
Occupation
al exposure
to harmful
agent
Mediu
m
High High Safety
Manager
The
consequence
associated
with this risk
includes
adverse
impact on
health of
workers
working
within firm.
Periodical review of
health and safety
system of organisation
and improvement in
technical safety
measures.
Legal and
regulatory
risk
Mediu
m
High High Manage
ment
Its
consequence
s include
Compliance with all the
laws and regulations
made by government.

changes in
production
system and
processes.
Providing training and
awareness
programmes to
employees (Smith,
Merna and Jobling,
2014).
Substitute
product
Low Mediu
m
Mediu
m
Producti
on
Manager
If the drug
has harmful
effect on
health of an
individual and
another
company
provides is
substitution
that impacts
less on their
health then it
creates risk
for company.
Substitution of
dangerous substances
with less dangerous
substances
Risk assessment plan refers to the document, which is prepared to foresee risk, determine
influence and define consequence to risks. This helps managers in determining a potential risk
and assessing their impact. The risk assessment plan for Dechra Pharmaceuticals PLC Group
helps manager in identifying risk as well as their impact which helps management in taking
appropriate decisions for reducing the errors and mitigating risk. The risk assessment and
management plan help company in ensuring efficient and consistent operations by ensuring the
compliance with laws and regulations (Gurnani, Mehrotra and Ray, 2012). This helps in
emphasizing more on safety and security of employees. The mitigation actions used by Dechra
Pharmaceuticals PLC Group helps in minimizing the errors and mitigating a risk. Periodical review
of health and safety system helps in determining the areas that needs improvements so that
appropriate measures can be taken to promote health and safety of workforce within firm. The
decision of company regarding changing the procedure that utilize harmful substances helps in
minimising the occupational exposure to harmful agents. Improved technical safety measures
resulted in central weighing room which is new and equipped with state-of-the-art system of
ventilation and high efficiency particulate air filter laminar flow cabinets for weighing the chemicals

of solid nature in intermediate and low chemical toxicity categories. Sealed packages are used for
transporting the chemicals from room to the place where they use. Apart from this, for limiting the
potential exposures, high potency active pharmaceutical ingredients like levothyroxine were
moved to production area from weighing room (Herwadkar and Hsiao, Oracle International Corp,
2017).
Company equipped the production area with ventilation, heating and air conditioning
system with HEPA filters which also assists in protecting the environment. Moreover, firm planned
for personnel air lock system so that any individual working with high potency active
pharmaceutical ingredients will wear protective equipments with self-contained breathing
apparatus and protective hood. The workers after finishing their work will pass through the
personnel air lock system and the mist showers and the high potency active pharmaceutical
ingredients are removed by mist showers. All this will help company in mitigating the risk of
occupational exposure to harmful agent.
Apart from this, Dechra Pharmaceuticals PLC Group was substituted ethidium bromide with
GelRed nucleic acid gel stain which decrease the cost of hazardous waste disposal of company.
GelRed is a DNA strain which is most sensitive, robust and safe nucleic acid gel stain. In addition
to this, the legal and regulatory risk is mitigated by company by following all the laws and
regulations made by government (Hillson and Murray-Webster, 2017). This will help in ensuring
health and safety of employees and preventing them from any harmful accidents or incidents. All
these measures taken in assessment plan helps in intensifying communication between managers
and employees regarding safety at work.
In reducing errors and improving efficiency, technology plays very crucial role. The firm has
decided to change its processes that utilizes harmful substances helps in reducing the
occupational exposure. This technical safety measure resulted in implementation of central
weighing room outfitted with a system called state-of-the-art ventilation that includes laminar flow
cabinets with HEPA filters which are used in weighing the chemical of solid nature in low and
intermediate toxicity categories. Sealed packaging technology is used by firm in transporting
chemicals from room to their actual place of use. Apart from this, technology is also used in
managing the valuable information or data related to such chemicals which might result in
something severe if used by any other organisation or individuals. Therefore, by using latest
technology it can protect the confidential data which are useful for the organisation.
Use of glove box assists in moving high-potency active pharmaceutical ingredients to
production area for removing potential exposures. By the use of this technology, company is
enabled to minimising the hazards that may impacts the health of employees in adverse manner.
Also, technology is used by company in organizing training courses for employees as this helps in
providing education to employees to work with hazardous substances. Training is provided to

workers regarding chemicals they handle involving information on health risks, hazard
identification, procedures to use in emergency cases, labelling of chemical and responsible
behaviour while working a with them (Lawrence, Goldman Sachs and Co, 2011). In this way,
technology plays crucial role in using information to reducing errors in Dechra Pharmaceuticals
PLC Group.
The risk assessment plan of Dechra Pharmaceuticals PLC Group proves to be very
effective in determining risks and managing them in an efficient way. This plan helps company in
employing various strategies that helps in mitigating risks in proper way. The strategies like
substitution of harmful substance with less harmful substance, improved technical safety
measures etc. helped company in ensuring safety of its employees (Linehan, Comtois and Ward-
Ciesielski, 2012). All the measures taken by firm are resulted in intensified communication among
management and employees regarding work safety. It also helps in increasing awareness and
participation of workers about workplace health and safety. Apart from this, the control of
hazardous substances is improved in the working surroundings along with a reduction in hazards
at the time of handling hazardous substances. In addition to this, the prevention of health
impairments associated with chemicals are improved. All these assist company in attaining
success and its financial status is also improved.
There are number of achievements which have been gained by Dechra PLC Group such as
policies have been formulated fro health and safety, leadership has been shown for managing the
team, financial position has become viable and sound and many more. These represents that risk
factors in related to the entity has been reduced to a great extent which has created positive
impact on the organisation. Furthermore, number of approaches have been achieved which
created desired results that are beneficial for the company.
2. CONCLUSION
As per the above-mentioned report it has been concluded that managing the risks is very
necessary as it helps in determining and addressing the risks in effective way. Management of
company requires to timely review all its procedures so that the risks can be identified timely and
enable managers to take adequate measures in order to mitigate them. Risk register and risk
metrics helps in proper determination of issues and its mitigating actions. Risk assessment plan is
prepared by company to foresee risk, assess its influence and specify consequence to risks.
Technology plays very crucial role in reducing errors and ensuring safety of employees. This helps
in intensifying communication process within company and increasing awareness of people
regarding chemicals they handle, and health impairments associated with those.

3. REFERENCES
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