Merck Chemical Engineering Research & Development

Virtual Information Session

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Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA

September 2022

Alexandra “Alex” Sun

Associate Principal Scientist, Merck Process Research &Development

1993

Born in

Boston, MA

1994

Moved to

New York City

2003

Moved to

Taipei, Taiwan

2008

High school

in Boston, MA

2011

College at

Brandeis University

(BS Chemistry)

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2014

Discovery Chemistry Internship

at Merck (Boston, MA)

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2015

Grad School at

U Michigan

(PhD Chemistry)

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2020-Present

Chemist/Engineer

at Merck (Rahway, NJ)

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My journey from academia to industry

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What I gained from my experience in academia (college, grad school):

• Higher level of freedom/flexibility to explore research topics of interest
• Opportunity to teach and mentor students
• Learning how to think critically about scientific problems and communicate effectively
• Learning how to persevere through challenges, both scientifically and mentally

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Why I wanted to pursue a career in industry:

• Tangible, real-world impact of my research, e.g. delivering a new drug to the market!
• Highly collaborative environment, I get to work with world-class scientists/engineers from diverse backgrounds
• Flexibility to work in different roles, including non-research positions

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Lessons I’ve learned in my career journey:

• Seek out mentors – the support network that you build over time will be your greatest asset
• Understand your strengths – when faced with imposter syndrome, remind yourself what you are uniquely good at and channel your strengths
• Keep an open mind – your education/career journey is an ongoing process of self-discovery and learning. I am still figuring out what “I want to be when I grow up ☺”

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Our Mission at Merck: Inventing for Life

We are a global healthcare company with a 130-year history of working to make a difference

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Small molecules

Macrocyclic peptides

Virus-like particles

Monoclonal antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates

20,000,000

150,000

400

2000

MK-0616

Therapeutic proteins

Sotatercept

80,000

mRNA lipid nanoparticles

And beyond!

Molecular weight

Antibody-drug conjugate

MRK

HEADQUARTERS

Rahway, NJ, and operate in 140+ countries

74K

EMPLOYEES

17K employees involved

in research & development

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422M

ACCESS TO HEALTH

~422M people reached through our major programs & partnerships

My scientific journey at Merck

Joined Merck in 2020, Currently in the Chemical Engineering R&D Department

And multiple disease area programs:

• Covid-19 treatment (molnupiravir)
• Oncology (belzutifan)
• Cardiovascular disease (MK-0616)

Worked across chemistry and engineering groups

• Data-Rich Experimentation (lab automation)
• Chemical Engineering R&D (pilot plant scale-up)
• External Capabilities (commercial manufacturing)

Chemical Engineering R&D

External

Capabilities

Enabling Technologies

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Our Department – Chemical Engineering R&D

6

Small Molecule Chemical Engineering: Our Challenges

Chemical engineering problems span the synthesis of the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) across numerous unit operations.

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Make the molecule

Challenge:

Toolbox &

Skills:

Kinetic

Modeling

Mixing

Sensitivities

Flow

Chemistry

Reaction Engineering & Transport

Purify the product

Distillations

Extractions

Adsorption

Crystallization

Isolate the particle

Thermodynamics and Separations

Fluid Dynamics and Transpot

Milling

Drying

Filtration

Chemical Engineering Research and Development (CERD)

Project Teams

Operations

Specialty Groups

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The Crystallization Lab, Hazardous Reactions Lab, and Environmental & Process Safety Engineering Group contain unit operations subject matter experts.

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Process safety engineering group ensures the processes are inherently safe, meet all regulatory requirements, and are environmentally friendly.

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Scale-up of processing steps to deliver API through Good Manufacturing Practices and Good Manufacturing Compliance.

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Hands-on engineering scale-up experience

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Modern process analytical technology (PAT) capabilities and opportunities to implement new technology

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SM PR&D Values Influence Our Manufacturing Routes

Using these skills, we work closely with our partner groups to ensure that our values are engrained in long-term manufacturing.

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• CERD’s Environmental and Process Safety Engineering Group is connected to all modalities throughout Merck.

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• Develop innovative technologies for future manufacturing

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• Green & Sustainable process engineering by design

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Merck – Commitment to Green & Sustainable Manufacturing

“Our passion to save and improve lives extends to our commitment to protecting and sustaining the environment.”

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“We will minimize our environmental footprint through scientific innovation.”

Merck – Commitment to Green & Sustainable Manufacturing

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2022

Uprifosbuvir

Gefapixant

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

Our Culture – People Focused

At Merck, we are committed to:

• Recognizing your unique skill set and nurturing your talent
• Developing a career path reflective of your scientific interests
• Ensuring diversity and inclusion at every level of our organization
• Maintaining a culture that supports work/life balance

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Within CERD:

• Match new hires with technical mentors to ensure success
• Provide trainings and tools to grow deep technical skills
• Identify rotation opportunities to broaden skills
• Offer flexible work arrangements as needed
• Onboarding and Culture Team to keep work enjoyable

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Our Culture – Scientific Excellence

We hire engineers to keep doing science. Our achievements help patients and the scientific community.

• Scientific publications
• External conferences
• Pre-competitive collaborations
• Academic collaborations
• Award-winning engineers

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♦ Kilo-Scale Electrochemical Oxidation of a Thioether to a Sulfone: A Workflow for scaling up Electrosynthesis. (2022) OPR&D

♦  An Investigation into the Unexpected Corrosion of Nickel Alloy Vessels with Selectfluor. (2022) OPR&D

♦ Green and sustainable metrics: Charting the course for green-by-design small molecule API synthesis. (2022) Current Research in Green and Sustainable Chemistry

♦ Automation Technologies to Enable Data-Rich Experimentation: Beyond Design of Experiments for Process Modeling in Late-Stage Process Development. (2021) OPR&D

♦ Crystallization Process Development for the Final Step of the Biocatalytic Synthesis of Islatravir: Comprehensive Crystal Engineering for a Low-Dose Drug. (2021) OPR&D

♦ Characterization of Propionyl Phosphate Hydrolysis Kinetics by Data Rich Experiments and In-line Process Analytical Technology. (2021) OPR&D

♦ Photon Equivalents as a Parameter for Scaling Photoredox Reactions in Flow: Translation of Photocatalytic C−N Cross‐Coupling from Lab Scale to Multikilogram Scale. (2020) ACIE

♦ Multidimensional Dynamics Experiments for Data-Rich Process Development of Reactions in Flow (2019) RCE

Come meet us in person in Phoenix!

A day in the life of a CERD engineer

1. Read journal article with coffee, respond to emails.
2. Set-up and start lab experiment to support the filing.
• Exploring impurity sensitivity to input factors
• Building a kinetic model to improve process understanding
3. Attend seminar by protein engineering on biocatalytic oxidations.
4. Lunch with peers.
5. Run over to pilot plant to see crystallization performance
6. Work on new feedback controller on flow chemistry system
7. Head over to Merck field for softball

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Sound interesting?

Go to jobs.merck.com and search for positions by posting:

• MRL CERD summer intern (undergrad / grad): R199804
• MMD CCT summer intern (undergrad / grad): R194116
• MRL CERD Environmental & Process Safety Engineering Senior Scientist (entry PhD): R198348
• MRL CERD Projects Senior Engineer (entry PhD) – In progress. You will receive an email when posting is live.

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