Dr. Sydney Hollingshead

Senior Advisor

Eli Lilly and Company

 

Host:  Dr. Gabriela Nagy

 

Sydney Hollingshead is a Senior Advisor at Eli Lilly and Company, where she supports drug product formulation development and process engineering for parenteral drug products. She holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from UC Santa Barbara and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University, where her doctoral research focused on recombinant protein-based surgical adhesives. Prior to joining Lilly, she worked as an R&D engineer at COOK Biotech, Inc., leading development of degradable polymer and tissue-based medical devices from ideation through aseptic manufacturing. Her technical work spans biomaterials formulation, bioconjugation, lyophilization, aseptic and sterile processing, and combination product development. Sydney has a longstanding commitment to safety in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry, formerly serving as laboratory safety representative and currently representing Bioproducts on the Lilly Chemical Hygiene Plan Committee. She is a recipient of the Baxter Young Investigator Award and was named to the inaugural Conexus Indiana Rising 30 class of 2021. She is an active member of the Purdue Chemical Engineering Industrial Advisory Committee.

 

Industrial pharmaceutical R&D laboratories present a safety landscape that differs markedly from academic research environments. This seminar examines that transition through the lens of biologic drug product development, covering the structural and cultural differences between academic and industrial labs, materials and equipment handling under quality and regulatory constraints, and the unique operator and patient safety risks inherent to biologic parenterals. The seminar concludes by connecting process design decisions to dual safety outcomes - how the same engineering choices made in early R&D affect operator safety during manufacturing and patient safety at the point of care.