Pharma 4.0 – Welcome to a Smarter Way of Manufacturing

By:  John Niziolek
Associate Director, CSV
IPS-Integrated Project Services, LLC

This post is the first of a three part series exploring Pharma 4.0, its beneficial impact to organizations and the additional steps necessary to maintain compliance with the new technologies.

Through evolution, creation, or by chance, the human race has become the dominate species on this planet. Our intellect is what has allowed our species to advance, innovate, and master the Earth in many capacities. With each generation, advances in technologies have allowed for longer and healthier lives, more abundant food sources, and the ability to explore the depths of space.

In more recent times, the technologies which have impacted us the greatest can be categorized into four industrial phases:

• Steam Power (Industry 1.0)
• Electricity (Industry 2.0)
• Computers & Automation (Industry 3.0)
• The Internet (Industry 4.0)

In the life sciences manufacturing process, Industry 4.0 (or more specifically Pharma 4.0) is in a period of rapid growth and adoption.

Pharma 4.0 can be defined as the integration of technologies into the manufacturing process, systems, and platforms to allow for intelligent, data-driven decisions to occur. Pharma 4.0 is focused on the data in, around, and resulting from the manufacturing process.

Advances in sensor technologies which allow for the capturing of more precise data, speed of data acquisition, and advanced data analytic practices allow organizations to leverage both real-time and trend data to reduce production costs, increase product quality, and equipment reliability.

Life sciences organizations that implement these smart technologies have the potential ability to gain better control over resources, make more rapid and accurate decisions, and ultimately have better ability to develop and maintain a higher quality of product for their patients.

In our next post we will discuss the impact implementation of Pharma 4.0 technologies has on the organization specifically in regard to the abundant data produced and maintaining its integrity.