This article summarizes the key findings from the 7th Pharma 4.0™ Survey, conducted in 2023. It explores the demographics of the survey respondents, maturity levels of Pharma 4.0™ adoption, enabling technologies being leveraged, anticipated benefits, and challenges encountered.
The regulation of drug shortage prevention has rapidly changed over the past several years due to large-scale, highly visible events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, hurricanes, and geopolitical issues. Efforts to effectively address the complex and multifaceted issues contributing to drug shortages require close technical collaboration and clear communication between the pharmaceutical...
On 13 March 2024, ISPE concluded the 2024 Aseptic Conference with a regulatory panel question and answer session. Attendees were invited to submit questions to representatives from the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES), US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Regierungspraesidium Tübingen (RP Tübingen), World Health Organization (WHO), Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), and...
Innovation is an integral part of corporate strategy. Initiatives to facilitate innovation are continually developed and pursued. The 2022 ISPE Pharma 4.0™ Emerging Leader (EL) Hackathon was designed based on innovator needs and provided a hands-on blueprint manufacturing exercise. Over a period of two days and facilitated by 40 subject matter experts, coaches, and jury members, 50...
On 7 March 2023, ISPE continued its tradition of concluding the 2023 ISPE Aseptic Conference with a regulatory panel question and answer session. Attendees were invited to submit questions to the FDA representatives. This article offers highlights from the discussion.
The ICH Quality Discussion Group (QDG) has recommended contemporizing the specification setting guidelines ICH Q6A and Q6B. This provides an excellent opportunity to update ICH Q6A/B to align and work in a complementary manner with the science-, risk/knowledge-based concepts in ICH Q8–Q12. The ISPE Pharmaceutical Quality Lifecycle Implementation (PQLI) Patient-Centric Specification working...
The adoption of continuous manufacturing (CM) in the pharmaceutical industry is increasing because of the advantages and opportunities it offers, including the ability to handle hazardous reactions, a higher degree of process integration, and improved sustainability. This article discusses the considerations and approaches adopted by Pfizer, Eli Lilly, GSK, and Amgen in designing and...
The fifth Pharma 4.0™ conference was held December 2022 in Vienna, Austria, in combination with the Aseptic Processing conference. Nearly 500 participants attended either in person or online to learn about the latest developments.
Many emerging tools and technologies support the environmental sustainability of the pharmaceutical industry. In facility design, solutions are derived through science-based analyses of environmental impacts from the materials, processes, services, and architecture. From greener energy sources to a reduction in the type and amount of emissions, we are seeing improvement in this sector’s...
This article shows how non-supervised artificial intelligence (AI) methods can strongly support common processes in the pharmaceutical industry such as wet granulation drying. The techniques used demonstrate how continuous process optimization can be enabled and the process control strategy is permanently updated while keeping product quality under strong assurance and also increasing energy...
An interview with Shin Kawamata of Japan’s Foundation for Biomedical Research and Innovation (FBRI) highlights exciting work to move cell therapy toward reliable and scalable commercialization.
The 2022 ISPE Aseptic Conference Regulatory Panel session on 15 March was as always one of the highlights of the conference, and this year’s discussion with regulators followed in that tradition.
The 30th ISPE Aseptic Conference culminated in the interactive regulatory panel, which offered attendees the unique opportunity to ask questions directly to the regulators.
Robotic process automation (RPA) software automatically handles manual, repetitive, time-consuming, and highly structured tasks such as data entry and back-office functions. Certain processes specific to the pharmaceutical industry represent strong candidates for RPA implementation, with significant potential savings and the possibility of ensuring compliance.
Industry 4.0 is the recent movement toward intelligent automation technology. In this new era, the integration of modern manufacturing skills and novel information technologies plays an important role on economic competitiveness.
As noted in the ISPE Drug Shortages Prevention Plan,
As noted in the ISPE Drug Shortages Prevention Plan,
In 2000, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) introduced Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) to create a methodology to promote sustainability-focused practices in the building industry. This article reviews the earliest protype that we know of for a LEED manufacturing facility, presents a real-world case study of a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility achieving LEED Gold,...
We have some clarity over the desired end point of zero carbon within the next 30 years (or sooner for some pharma companies), but our industry is uncertain how we will achieve this objective. As pharma engineers, we will all play a role in delivering this end point through the continuous improvement of existing facilities and by designing, equipping, and building new facilities that will be...
