Elsa Gomez
Title: Director of Quality Assurance for Research and Development
Company: Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Location: Corona, CA, United States
Elsa Gomez began her career as an auditor of companies that provided pharmaceutical products to the United States Department of Defense. She gained professional experience by being involved in all aspects of pharmaceutical manufacturing and associated quality control systems, and steadily progressed throughout the industry. Today, she serves as the director of quality assurance for research and development for Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which is now known as Actavis Inc. Actavis is a pharmaceutical company that focuses on developing and distributing brand and generic drugs.
Ms. Gomez assumed her current role 12 years ago and is recognized for her strengths in compliance oversight and regulations supervision of the development and manufacture of pharmaceutical products. In her role, she is responsible for overseeing the research and developmental activities of the pharmacists and chemists, ensuring the use of proper manufacturing practices in the internal research and development department per regulatory agency guidelines, ensuring that appropriate quality systems are implemented and that information and documentation submitted to regulatory agencies meet requirements, assisting managers and employees in the research, development and quality assurance departments, and preparing for regulatory agency inspections.
Throughout her career, Ms. Gomez played an integral part in successfully transferring products between Puerto Rico and England, as well as transferring products from the United States to Puerto Rico and back again. She held a variety of positions over the course of her 38-year career and was the first female director of quality for a pharmaceutical company in Puerto Rico in 1974. Prior to attaining her current position, Ms. Gomez was the internal compliance manager, director of quality control, and director of production at Searle and Company, plant manager at Searle Pharmaceuticals, Inc., director of quality assurance at Winthrop Pharmaceuticals, and vice president of quality systems at Mova Pharmaceutical Corporation. Ms. Gomez then earned the opportunity to actively participate in the startup of Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc. She served as the company’s vice president of operations, manager of technical projects and corporate quality assurance, director of corporate quality assurance, vice president of quality assurance, and vice president of quality assurance and compliance.
Ms. Gomez believes that the main goal of those who work in the field of pharmaceutical quality assurance should be to provide affordable, high-quality pharmaceutical products that will enable people to effectively manage their health conditions. She attributes all the success she has achieved throughout her career to the support she receives from her employees. Looking toward the future, Ms. Gomez intends to become a consultant. She also would like to promote the importance of having goals, striving to achieve those goals no matter what obstacles may come in your path and using these obstacles as a step to achieving those goals.
She earned a Master of Science in radiation chemistry and a Bachelor of Science in physical chemistry at the University of Puerto Rico. Ms. Gomez stays abreast of changes and advancements in her field through her affiliation with the American Society for Quality and American Chemical Society.
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