Riitta Rantala

Background

About Riitta Rantala

I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Pharmacy from University of Helsinki, and I am a Higher Commercial College Graduate from Espoon kauppaoppilaitos (Espoo Commercial College), where my study program was Foreign Trade. I have also completed Continuing Studies courses in the field of medicine in Stanford University. While working as a pharmacist, I achieved a Vocational Qualification in Business and Administration, Further Qualification in Customer Service and Sales. In my current position as CTA at Oriola Corporation, I have coordinated clinical trials in six Nordic and Baltic countries with 44 sites. It is great to be part of the process, which usually leads to a medical treatment that benefit patients with severe illnesses. Quality assurance, translation and archiving of clinical trial documents, uploading documents in eTMF, as well as compiling and updating ISFs are my main responsibilities. Close cooperation with sponsors and CRAs is crucial for the success of my work. My previous positions as Special Licensed Medicines & Marketing Coordinator and Import Coordinator of Special Licensed Medicines at Oriola Corporation included: import and sales of special licensed medicines, various supply chain related tasks, handling of product defects, handling and coordinating of special licensed medicine applications, as well as handling and billing of special licensed medicine permissions - all in close cooperation with suppliers in Europe and the U.S.A, Finnish authorities (Evira, Fimea) and Oriola’s other teams (Clinical Trials, Customer Service, Logistics, Master Data, Quality Control, Supply Chain Coordination). I have several years' experience as a pharmacist in different Finnish pharmacies, as well. The customer service included dispensing prescription medicines, checking doses and interactions of prescription medicines, giving medicinal information, offering and selling supportive treatments that complement customer needs. In the OTC department, I performed customer needs assessment and offered and sold products that created the best customer-specific benefit. During my years in California, I got laboratory assistant's experience at Gail Martin Laboratory, UCSF (University of California in San Francisco). I performed versatile tasks of laboratory assistant within the field of developmental biology: Maintenance of a transgenic mouse colony (including PCR), In situ hybridizations (including preparation and analysis of plasmid-DNA and RNA-probes), histology (including paraffin, plastic and cryo sectioning), and preparation of skeletal preps.