Creating the digital pharma factory of the future

Transformative digital projects at the Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre

Digital transformation in the pharmaceutical industry is critical. Unlocking the huge potential of industry 4.0 through innovations including machine learning, artificial intelligence, and robotics will improve efficiencies., reduce costs and bring benefits to patients.

However, integrating them into existing models presents a number of challenges.

To drive the pharma industry’s digital future we’re bringing together companies, technology providers, and regulators in a pre-competitive environment. Together, we will help to remove barriers to implementation for solution providers and increase the understanding of the holistic value digital technologies can bring to pharma supply chains.

Driving collaboration through digital innovation

We’re aiming to collaboratively deliver digital pharma solutions, unlike anything else available in the pharma ecosystem. Known as The Digital Membership, this cross-sector membership project is taking place at our Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre in Glasgow. Here pharma companies, technology providers, and regulators can come together to drive standardised architectures; to enable rapid deployment of digital technologies across the entire industry to improve patient outcomes, sustainability, flexibility and value.

Mapping the digital systems architecture

Pharma companies and technology providers can join the collaboration through the membership programme or as a contributor to one of a series of industry-identified ‘sprint’ projects.

Digital Membership – phase 1

We will deliver template Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) architectures (data, software and hardware- Enterprise architectures) that will support the rapid implementation of novel digital manufacturing solutions and understanding of their contextualised business value.

Working together we will combine our knowledge to highlight the technology gaps in the digital landscape (hardware and software tools) and deliver a roadmap to include the technical solutions which need to be addressed. We will focus on the needs of pharma companies and connect them to solution providers.

Outcomes will include:

Understanding of how best to deliver digital solutions in multiple medicines manufacturing scenarios
Understanding of the high-level technology blockers to achieving rapid return on investment through digitalisation.
Roadmap to highlight industry-level architecture blockers to compare to internal implementation exercises (faster, influencing, and route to solutions).

Digital Membership – phase 2 (Projects)

We will focus on developing specific technologies to de-risk, demonstrate and learn (through projects), ensuring their deployment would comply with regulatory standards and deliver the expected business outcomes. At the end of the road mapping process, we will deliver several industry-ready tools, which will be implemented through our digital factory demonstrator at the Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre. Providing applicable tools and methods by which a complete solution could be developed to align with a partner’s commercial needs throughout the course of the challenge.

Benefits of the membership

Members who join CPI’s Digital Membership will be part of a network with access to a set of benefits, including:

- Reduced investment risk through shared costs and resources.
- Access to cutting-edge technologies and expertise.
- Networking and collaboration opportunities with industry leaders.
- Influence on shaping the future of digital manufacturing.

Looking to the future

The future phases of the project will address the gaps in collaboration (technical and business driven) with our partners from across the medicines manufacturing ecosystem. Enabling us to drive standardisation through active doing within our Centre, via our skilled staff. Meaning we quickly breathe life into digitalisation efforts and can act as a Digital Demonstration facility.

Partners and Funders

The Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre is a collaboration between CPI, the University of Strathclyde and founding industry partners, GSK and AstraZeneca with funding provided by Scottish Enterprise and UK Research and Innovation.

Currently, The Digital Membership consists of PWC, GSK, AstraZeneca, The National Physical Laboratory, Tulip, Siemens, The University of Cambridge, Clarity Compliance, Atos, Quotient Sciences, ITS, The University of Strathclyde, Wyoming, Capgemini