Making sense of digitalisation
27th Aug 2021
Embracing digital technologies to enhance efficiency and quality in pharmaceutical development and manufacturing.
In an increasingly digital world, diverse industries have taken measures to automate processes and incorporate emerging technologies into their day-to-day workflows. The pharmaceutical industry is no exception. The COVID-19 pandemic further accelerated the rate at which pharmaceutical and biotechnology organisations are exploring and embracing digitalisation, and the importance they place on technology adoption among their outsourced partners. By selecting an outsourced partner with an intentional digitalisation strategy, organisations can bring new levels of efficiency, quality, cost-effectiveness and insight to their projects.
75% of pharmaceutical manufacturing professionals agree that automation will strengthen productivity, quality and efficiency.Maximising value through incremental enhancements and continual innovation.
Digitalisation is an ongoing, evolving process for pharmaceutical organisations. Leveraging digitalisation to optimise workflows internally is only the beginning. It is equally critical to select an outsourced partner that has a forward-looking digitalisation strategy in place, inclusive of both long-term strategic investments and ongoing incremental improvements. Your partner’s strategy should be informed by its existing workflows, broader industry movements, and, most importantly, the value for customers. It is important to couple digital innovation with a pragmatic understanding of your product’s requirements to maximise digitalisation’s many benefits.
How can a partner with a clear digitalisation strategy enhance project success?
The advantages of digitalisation for an organisation’s internal processes are clear, but why is it important that your outsourced partner also embraces digital technology? A partner who prioritises automation and digitalisation brings several compelling advantages to its customers.
Here are four ways a partner who is committed to digital transformation can drive value and maximise success:
Pharmaceutical development and manufacturing processes are highly complex, with zero room for error. And yet, research indicates that manual tasks are only 92% accurate, which is less than adequate given the industry’s rigorous quality and compliance requirements. Introducing automation to manual processes, particularly in areas like quality control, greatly reduces the potential for error and generates consistent, high-quality results.
Pharmaceutical professionals expect that digitalisation will reduce costs resulting from poor quality by 17%.The drug development process is filled with sensitive data that plays a vital role in optimisation, safety and regulatory approval. By connecting internal systems and automating data collection, organisations can breakdown silos and access high-quality insights to optimise decision-making. In addition, electronic data collection and storage enables organisations to maintain full confidence in their data’s security, and easily compile crucial documentation for key decision-makers and regulatory agencies.
Pharmaceutical organisations cite documentation issues as a top source of dissatisfaction with outsourced partners.Pharmaceutical manufacturing requires the highest levels of uptime, efficiency and throughput, particularly amid increasing demand. With technologies like continuous processing and other forms of automation, organisations can rapidly adapt to changing demand patterns and control costs through operational efficiency. Digital technologies and their associated efficiency gains can significantly accelerate a drug’s path to market.
Digitalisation can reduce downtime in pharmaceutical plants by 30% or more.
As new drug products in the pipeline become more complex and more personalised, pharmaceutical manufacturing costs continue to rise. As a result, the demand for cost control in pharmaceutical manufacturing has never been greater. Fortunately, the efficiency and automation enabled by digital technologies can significantly reduce costs associated with manufacturing while maintaining repeatable quality.
Pharmaceutical executives believe that digitalisation will reduce manufacturing costs by at least 20%.Embracing digitalisation to drive customer success.
At Sterling, we continually seek new ways to streamline processes and deliver new value. We have made significant strides to advance our digitalisation approach, including system upgrades across our facilities and more automated manufacturing processes. In addition, we are implementing electronic lab notebooks and process record sheets, and we have developed a phased rollout for new technologies and enhancements, with a number of additional projects in the pipeline. In line with our PDMO®, or partnership development and manufacturing organisation model, everything we do is focused on maximising our customers’ success.
Service
We pride ourselves on being easy to do business with, removing layers of complexity, maximising flexibility and adaptability to your requirements, and doing what we say we will do, again and again.
Passion
We promise to treat your molecule as our own, drive progress by continually exploring new and emerging capabilities, and do the right thing for our people and planet.
Science
We combine our expertise in complex and hazardous chemistry, our world-class facilities and our full-lifecycle capabilities to place scientific excellence at the core of every solution we deliver.