Month: December 2021

At a time when many South Carolina employers are complaining about the lack of people they can hire, there’s a lesson to be learned from Nephron Pharmaceuticals in Lexington County: Be creative, fun and flexible, and you just might get the workers you need – even during the holidays.

“We’ve onboarded so many people I just bought another bus to get people from the parking lot to the employee entrance,” said Nephron CEO Lou Kennedy in an exclusive interview. 

In the last five weeks, Nephron has hired 1,600 part-time employees to augment its full-time work force of 1,200 workers and 800 part-time staff in an all-out effort to produce 30 million vials of reagents used in COVID-19 kits as well as assembling millions of COVID-19 test kits sold in pharmacies.

“We’ve ramped from 20,000 kits on the first day to 2 million at the end of the first month,” Kennedy said. “We onboarded 1,600 people in the last five weeks with people of all ages of all shapes and sizes. I think that is remarkable given the employment challenges of the whole country and South Carolina.”

Just last week, the state Department of Employment and Workforce announced the state had more people employed than in any time of its history, which, in turn, meant an uber-low unemployment rate of 3.7 percent.

“The November employment numbers show that we have 2,317,620 people employed, which is 4,302 more than the previous high in October of 2019. And is 18,279 more than the pre-pandemic level in February of 2020,” said S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce Executive Director Dan Ellzey in a press release. 

“Along with the rise in people employed, we also have a significant decrease in the state’s unemployment rate. The November number is 3.7 percent compared to the October number of 3.9 percent. 3.7 percent is a post-pandemic low. In 19 months, our state dropped 7.8 points in its unemployment rate, from 11.5 percent in April and May of 2020 to the current rate,” he said.

In the middle of this employment environment, Nephron launched an effort to hire 2,500 temporary workers to fuel its COVID-19 packaging project. Some might say “daunting.” Others might say it would never work.

But they haven’t met Kennedy, whose energy is infectious and whose drive inspires team-wide excellence. So how have they done it? Through a blend of creativity, flexibility, competition and what she called “funky” outside-of-the-box thinking.

They attracted college fraternity and sorority members with part-time, flexible hours and contests to make the most number of kits. They reached out to local high schools and helped kids write resumes. They mined talent from area baseball, basketball, cheerleading and other sports squads. They posted flyers in elevators. They asked teachers who already worked part-time at Nephron to spread the word in churches and community groups to people who might want to work two hours a day to several to make a little extra holiday cash.

“Then they get caught up in the fun and competition of it and, all of a sudden, they’re bringing five or 10 of their friends,” Kennedy said. “It’s been a real grassroots effort.”

The company also tries to make the work experience, which starts around $15 per hour, similar to that of an Uber driver by paying part-time project workers immediately after a shift through an online account.

“It’s just a real holiday story where you can roll up your sleeves,” Kennedy said. “And here’s something we can do to get this country back to some sort of normalcy” by making more test kits to help the fight to smother the pandemic.

“You’ve got kids and their grandparents working on the same project,” she said. “There are senior citizens. We’ve got aunts, uncles. It’s like the Grinch story – the whole community of Whoville is down here” working together.

There’s another benefit: The effort to get more part-time help for the COVID-19 project is helping to fill other positions.

“The beauty of it is we’ve been able to identify out of this pool of temporary workers some full-time workers. And we’ve onboarded full-time-ers,” she said. “It’s been a recruiting bonanza.”
 

COLUMBIA — Nephron Pharmaceuticals’ expansion is progressing as production gets underway on a spate of new business ventures — from at-home COVID-19 test kits to chemotherapy drugs.

Since 2020, the West Columbia drug maker has invested $215 million to build out its campus in Lexington County’s Saxe Gotha Industrial Park. In the past month, the company hired 1,500 new part-time workers as it ramps up production of new product lines, CEO Lou Kennedy said, bringing it to 1,200 full-time employees and 2,500 part-timers.

The hiring spree comes as Nephron produced 30 million doses of reagent for Abbott Laboratories’ at-home COVID-19 test kits last month and assembled about 1 million kits. Kennedy hopes to increase kit production to 2 million per month in January as demand for them has skyrocketed amid new variants of the deadly virus. 

“As we see that the new variants seem to be spreading and are very, very contagious, we know that we need to have more testing going on,” Kennedy said.

President Joe Biden announced plans Dec. 21 to provide 500 million free rapid testing kits as the omicron variant surges nationwide, shipping the hard-to-find kits straight to people’s homes.

In addition to testing for the virus, Kennedy said she’s finalizing a long-awaited proposal with one of the major COVID-19 vaccine makers to fill syringes in a new 200,000-square-foot warehouse on the Nephron campus. Kennedy first announced her desire to add a vaccine line in July 2020 in anticipation of demand, but she had yet to win a contract for production. 

Aside from its coronavirus-related work, Nephron also has installed equipment in a new 110,000-square-foot wing where it will begin making chemotherapy drugs and a number of antibiotics.

“I’m really excited about that move because it’ll allow us to get into those three drug categories,” Kennedy said.

Historically, Nephron has focused on generic respiratory medications and about 125 sterile drugs that are in high demand at hospitals across the country.

Finally, the company has finished putting the roof on a new nitrile medical glove plant.

The idea for the plant came after U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., toured Nephron in May 2020 touting his agenda to move production of pharmaceuticals and health care supplies back to the United States from overseas. Kennedy latched on to the suggestion, announcing Nephron Nitrile in July 2021.

The new facility, which will make 3 billion gloves annually, is expected to be complete by the end of first quarter of 2022.

“It is critical that South Carolina lead the charge in bringing the production of life-saving medications and supplies back home to the United States,” Gov. Henry McMaster said when the plant was announced.

Kennedy took it a step further to say Nephron will also make a portion of its own medical devices, items that it currently imports. She’s calling the spinoff Inject EZ.

“Right now we’re buying our syringes from either Switzerland and Germany,” she said. “We’re going to open our own company where we’re going to make our own syringes, rubber stoppers and plungers.”

“I’ve got a few other tricks up my sleeve,” Kennedy said. “We expect to announce some future expansion as soon as we’ve finished all of these projects.”

For now, Nephron is hiring another 500 to 1,000 part-time workers.

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WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. – Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin today honored Nephron Pharmaceuticals Corporation CEO Lou Kennedy with the Key to the City. The mayor made the presentation during Kennedy’s appearance at the Columbia Rotary Club.

“Mayor Benjamin is a good friend, and, more importantly, he has been a great leader for the Midlands,” said Kennedy. “Thanks to the leadership of Mayor Benjamin, growth in Columbia, and around the region, has turned heads and caught the eye of businesses just like ours. That is one of the many reasons we moved from Florida. I could not be more proud for Nephron to be part of the Midlands family, and to have been able to join it during Mayor Benjamin’s service. I thank him and wish him well as he transitions to the next chapter.”

A West Columbia, S.C.-based company, Nephron develops and produces safe, affordable generic inhalation solutions and suspension products. The company also operates an industry-leading 503B Outsourcing Facility division which produces pre-filled sterile syringes, luer-lock vials, IV bottles and IV bags for hospitals across America, in an effort to alleviate drug shortage needs. 

Nephron launched a CLIA-certified diagnostics lab last year where it tests people for COVID-19 and administers vaccinations. In July, Nephron announced the opening of Nephron Nitrile, a plant that will produce American-made, medical-grade nitrile gloves.

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