CPHI Online Webinar Series – Optimising Pharma Manufacturing through Digital Transformations

This month’s CPHI Webinar Series explored achieving manufacturing excellence in pharma through the digitalisation of daily processes. Presented by Joe Doyle, Head of Sales at EviView, and Bikash Chatterjee, President and Chief Scientific Officer at Pharmatech Associates, the webinar provided a stimulating conversation on fostering data-driven decisions and streamlined digital collaborations to promote a strong start for Industry 5.0 integration. 

The drive for digital transformation in pharma 

Doyle kicked things off by asking Chatterjee about the strategic considerations for business performance and digital business strategies. With almost 89% of enterprises planning to or already having adopted digital business strategies, McKinsey estimated global spending on digital transformation services to be upwards of US$2.3 trillion. However, Chatterjee revealed that only 16% of respondents to the McKinsey survey feel that digital transformations have been successful in improving and sustaining business performances. Rather than seeing the estimated global impact, how can folks realise the full potential of digital solutions? How are the life sciences, and particularly pharma, driving towards digital maturity? 

“I think it’s important to point out that, no matter where you are as an organisation on the road to digital maturity, there’s always gains to be made in moving towards a digital strategy,” Doyle responded. “But I think the important question to ask is ‘why now’? Why is digitalisation now an imperative and no longer a nice option to have?” 

Breaking down the main reasons to seize digital advantage for manufacturing excellence, Doyle cited the following: 

• Industry 5.0 and the rise of collaborative manufacturing 
• CSRD compliance to standardise sustainability reporting 
• Adapting to a dynamic market landscape and agility 
• Reducing costs and providing a foundation for operational excellence 

“What I like about these initiatives is that it is a mix of both independent business performance but also this notion of a broader reporting obligation,” Chatterjee added. “There is a need to have both analytical capability and reporting capability as a by-product of the data you are acquiring. That requires a thoughtful architecture to make sure you can do both. Transactional systems and analytical systems are different. Having a clear thought process and strategy around these four elements is important, and pharma is beginning to realise that data is an integrated product of what we manufacture.” 

“Thoughtful is a very interesting word to use – we need to pause and step back to make sure we are taking the right steps in the right way when tackling any digital strategy initiative,” Doyle commented. The conversation shifted to the importance on the stakes of a technology landscape in pharma. “Technology is providing the opportunity to do predictive analysis without the heavy capital investment of manufacturing and evaluating,” Chatterjee commented. “Pharma is looking more and more to things like digital twin technology as more expensive HPAPIs are coming out for oncology drugs and immunotherapies – some of these APIs are incredibly costly. Having the ability to do digital models on a mechanistic level allows us to do predictive analysis, de-risking the studies to find the right design space without running multiple iterations. This also buys back time and manages costs. When nine out of ten drugs fail to get to market, it’s a huge catalyst to drive business success.” 

Industry 4.0 to Pharma 5.0: human-centric and sustainable 

Iterative evolutions of technology have resulted in the current ‘Industry 4.0’ emphasis on smart manufacturing and the start of digital transformations in manufacturing. Pharma 5.0 focuses on the human-centric capabilities that can be unlocked with technology. From generative AI for marketing to collaborative tools in Teams, Zoom, and Slack, “co-bots instead of robots is something we’re seeing pave the way on the shop floor,” Chatterjee stated.  

Sustainability was another lengthy topic of discussion between Doyle and Chatterjee. “Universally, people recognise that sustainability needs to be part of one’s core strategy. Having the technological and reporting/visual factory component can make sustainable an integral part of your overall execution rather than an afterthought,” Chatterjee said. Resilience is also a key component of a digital strategy. The capability to be agile and adapt to opportunities and avoid structural disruptions in supply chains is particularly challenging for pharma, an industry with suppliers and sub-suppliers throughout the chain, but progress is indeed being made. “Pharma 5.0 strives to bring these elements together as part of core business strategies in driving business performance as well as doing better for the world,” Chatterjee summarised.  

Real-life digitalisation for pharma operations teams 

The pitfalls of unproductive tier meetings, as Doyle called it, is one of the most visible cases in which productivity can be affected by different visualisation and analysis of data. "A distinct lack of communication and collaboration, between shifts, teams, or departments, is caused by a lack of means to effectively communicate. With ad-hoc emails, notes on a whiteboard etc. and worst of all, people start to disengage from the whole process due to a lack of ownership, accountability, or continuous lack of progress despite these meetings,” Doyle explained. 

“I think this is spot-on,” Chatterjee replied. “For decades now, we have known that the ability to have a common understanding of what is and isn’t important and a construct to see it and have an organisational commitment to review and discuss is a foundational element of any high-performance team. In the old days, we had physical charts and graphs that were reviewed on the manufacturing shop floor on a regular basis between teams and shifts. A lot of manufacturing organisations are siloed, and it is difficult to understand how actions can impact others downstream. This is an extremely important framework for driving overall business performance.” 

Overcoming these challenges can be divided into a few key pillars, Doyle outlined, to establish a framework to bring information together “in the right context”.  

Real-time dashboards: Replacing static reports with interactive data visualisations for instant insights. 

Collaborative platforms: Enhancing participation and communication with user-friendly interfaces for all levels. 

Centralised communication hubs: Breaking down silos and ensuring everyone is on the same page with a shared platform for information. 

Digital tools to establish a working structure to collect, visualise, analyse, and communicate data across the manufacturing shop floor can mean the difference between a driving manufacturing excellence and contending with stagnant business performances. 

The people’s perspective on digital tools in pharma manufacturing 

“Digitalisation should not be achieved while ignoring the people aspect,” Doyle emphasised. Allowing for active participation and a feedback loop from users across the manufacturing shop floor can lead the way for actionable and continuous improvement to any digital business strategy. High employee engagement is vital for peak performance. “One of the most valuable things you can do as an organisation is establish that culture where every voice can be heard,” Doyle said.  

Chatterjee was in agreement. “The number one reason digital transformations either fail or only slightly realise their promise of improvement is because the digital strategy is not clearly articulated,” Chatterjee added. “The people using this technology do not necessarily understand what the opportunity is or what the focus is. In pharma, we have a tendency focus on the technology itself without thinking about why we’re using the technology to drive business performance. That connection has to be made. Gathering information from the shop floor and the supply chain is an essential and effective way to get the data that we want, but there must be a mandate that this is essential. Otherwise folks won’t be heard and they won’t give the feedback needed for benefits and improvement.” 

“Engaging end-users and all stakeholders in various roles, even at the procurement process, for whatever digital transformation you implement, ultimately the adoption or rejection of that transformation will depend on how people engage with it and how much they feel it benefits or impedes their work,” Doyle added to Chatterjee’s point. 

The Audience Asks 

The webinar concluded with an engaging Q&A session, with a question on how to get current data to different systems, gearing towards integration. “There’s two broad approaches in integrating data – direct and indirect,” Doyle answered. “Direct would be the ideal case where services have direct access to databases and target systems. Indirect approaches have certain limitations. Maybe we aren’t allowed to access data, the connectivity may not be in place, there may not be a web service etc. It then becomes a case of ingesting data that’s pushed out from the target system on a scheduled system, for example.” 

“The only thing I would add to that is, again, understanding what you want to do,” Chatterjee mentioned. “What are you intending to do with this data at the end of the day – are you reporting or pushing a larger analytical exercise around the data? Understanding that upfront is important to position yourself with the right architecture and right technology.” 

Another question asked how data currently relying on manual input can be integrated into systems without access to digital tools. “It’s never too early to take those steps in the digital transformation journey,” Doyle assured. “Some of our customers rely on 30 or 40 Excel sheets to track what’s going on and we can work with that as well. You have to start somewhere. A phased approach is perfectly viable in taking those initial steps.” 

Digital transformations for achieving manufacturing excellence 

The CPHI Online webinar Achieving Manufacturing Excellence with Digital Transformations provided a comprehensive overview of how digital tools and transformations in the manufacturing process can drive business performance for pharma.  

Key takeaways from this webinar include: 

1. Digitalisation is a requirement, not a luxury: For the pharma industry and manufacturing, digitalisation must be seen as an imperative rather than an add-on as a means of driving growth and performance for business across the supply chain. This mindset change will be the driving force behind a successful strategic drive towards implementing digital tools for manufacturing optimisation. 

2. Feedback loops can make or break digital success: Implementing digital tools and strategies will only be marginally successful if the people using these tools are not considered. Engaging all end-users across the manufacturing pipeline in providing training and feedback systems will influence the adoption of rejection of a digital transformation. 

3. It will take time, but the time is now: The establishment of any new process will take time, and a digital transformation of pharma manufacturing is no different. However, it is important for pharma professionals to realise that the time for digitalisation is now. Even if a company is still relying on manual input of data into an Excel sheet, there are tools and options available on the market right now that can transform these modes of data storage, manipulation, and interpretation with a phased approach to early digital transformations.  

The need for digitalisation is an imperative but it must centre the people at the heart of pharma operations in order to fully realise the business potentials of digital transformations. 

To learn more about how to implement a successful digital transformation in your manufacturing processes, watch the full webinar here.