Introducing Pharmacovigilance Expert Rauni Komulainen

2022-09-27 14:50

A shift from a client company specialist to a PhaMe team consultant

“It’s refreshing to the mind!”, answers Rauni Komulainen when she is asked how it was when returning to the Biocodex Pharmaceutical and Medical Services team. Although Rauni joined Biocodex in January 2014, for the last 8 years she has been working as a Drug Safety Specialist in a client company. Today Rauni continues as Pharmacovigilance (PV) Specialist with similar tasks but now she is working as a consultant for several PV clients as part of the Biocodex PhaMe team.

Not just patient safety

“Even if the principle and regulation are the same for different clients, the way to work is different. Previously I worked with one customer but now I need to know the requirements for several PV clients.”

Rauni says that this also makes her job more versatile. “It is nice to learn new and get different challenges”, she continues.

Being such an expert in pharmacovigilance Rauni’s current responsibilities include different PV tasks in Nordic and Baltics. The newest project is a collaboration with global PV reports. Her day-to-day tasks include working with adverse drug reaction reports, pharmacovigilance literature reviews, and at times product quality complaints. Rauni also does quality monitoring by working with clients’ reconciliations and doing quality work for the PhaMe pharmacovigilance team.

Rauni doesn’t only have a solid background in pharmacovigilance matters, but she has gained experience from fascinating tasks in the healthcare system and pharmaceutical industry. The current PV Specialist used to work as mental health nurse as well as emergency response center operator and trainer. “Both tasks benefit my current work”, Rauni tells. “I know the healthcare system and understand the used terminology.” 10 years ago, before shifting to a pharmaceutical company, Rauni got a pharmacy assistant degree. “Before coming to Biocodex, I worked in versatile tasks in pharma industry with clinical trials, drug safety, marketing, and regulatory tasks”, she continues her admirable work experience.

New clients, office, and colleagues

Having this much experience from different demanding tasks, Rauni doesn’t come up with anything when she is asked what was difficult in the change. She feels that the shift from working 100 % with the client to the PhaMe team member was made easy and suitable for her. As the change was known well beforehand, she gradually started taking over the new tasks. Rauni worked two days a week for the client before starting full-time in PhaMe team last spring.

Besides changing the customer and workplace, Rauni also changed her co-workers. She says that when she was working for the client, the Biocodex PhaMe colleagues felt like strangers. “But now working from the Biocodex Espoo office it is wonderful to get to know my own team”, she continues.

We also love to get to know you and have you onboard, Rauni!


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