Navigating The Complex Pharmaceutical Industry

EMERSON IS DEDICATED TO PROVIDING PRODUCTS AND SERVICES THAT DELIVER VALUE TO THE LIFE SCIENCES SUPPLY CHAIN FROM PROCESS DEVELOPMENT THROUGH COMMERCIAL MANU

“The life sciences industry is transforming itself, both in the types of products produced as well as how they are manufactured,” shared Bill Smizaski, Vice President of Global Life Sciences Operations. “Now more than ever, life sciences manufacturing is going through fundamental changes.

“There’s pressure on the industry to drive costs down and make medicine more accessible. They also need to find innovative ways to bring new therapies to market faster.”

Smizaski has 30 years of life sciences industry experience in engineering, automation, and IT. He joined Emerson in 2016 to help build strategies to address the industry’s challenges through automation and operational performance improvements.

THE SHIFTING INDUSTRY

A big shift in the life sciences industry is a growing focus on biologics products, or large molecules. Unlike conventional pharmaceuticals that are produced through chemical synthesis, biopharmaceuticals are produced through biological synthesis in living organisms. Changing from chemical to biologic processes means new assets are required to develop and commercially manufacture biologics and vaccines.

Today, most biologics products are manufactured in capital intensive, stainless steel process trains operated with batch processes. They have limited flexibility for changeover to new products and require the equipment and piping to be cleaned and sterilized between batches. Addressing these challenges is driving manufacturers to innovate.

These innovations can take many forms. One approach is to improve efficiency and quality by moving analytical quality measurement and control from offline in the laboratory to online in the automation system. This approach eliminates the wait for lab results to make decisions and improves right first-time production.