Michael Wachala
Associate Director of EHS Regeneron
Michael Wachala is a Certified Industrial Hygienist and Registered Biosafety Professional with over a decade of EHS experience in the biotech, chemical, and healthcare industries. He holds an M.S. in Occupational Hygiene from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell and brings a research-driven approach to biosafety and environmental compliance. At Regeneron, Michael leads efforts in industrial hygiene and enhances hazard communication strategies specific to biologics.
Seminars
- Early engagement between toxicology and R&D teams is becoming essential as advanced therapeutics like trispecific mAbs, ADCs, and radio conjugates become more prevalent, ensuring safety considerations are embedded from the start
- Streamlining toxicological assessment in a fast-evolving therapeutic landscape when a compound is both biological and a high potency small molecule: Are industrial hygiene and toxicology teams working together?
- Cross-functional collaboration between industrial hygiene and toxicology is critical to efficiently assess the risks of complex compounds that combine biological and high-potency characteristics
- Moving beyond default worst-case assumptions enables smarter innovation, with more nuanced, evidence-based toxicity assessments that balance safety with scientific progress
Industrial hygiene and ergonomics are often the most technical and most misunderstood areas of EHS in biopharma. As sites grow more complex and regulatory expectations increase, many organisations are feeling the pressure of capability gaps at both site and regional levels.
This session offers a fresh look at how biopharma companies are addressing this shortfall, what is working and not working land demonstrates how to build industrial hygiene expertise.
- Learn how companies are building regional or “hub and spoke” IH support systems, where experts guide multiple sites, provide targeted coaching, and act as strategic partners rather than just compliance checkers
- Discover how organisations are breaking down IH into practical, role-relevant knowledge for site EHS teams and operations
- Learn how companies are applying high-impact training formats (like microlearning and job shadowing) to close the knowledge gap sustainably, especially for ergonomics and IH in cross-functional teams
