In recent years, the pharmaceutical industry has been grappling with the tension between the growing demand for increasingly diverse pharmaceutical products and the escalating challenges of ensuring supply. The weight of this challenge becomes even more pronounced during periods of disruption and volatility, such as the COVID-19 pandemic – a topic that has been trending at the ISPE Annual Meeting in Boston this week. Modern Process Analytical Technology (PAT) helps alleviate this strain for pharma manufacturers by discovering practical changes in production that boost yield and throughput, as well as reduce the number of failed batches, together increasing and stabilizing the supply of saleable product. In this way, modern PAT directly supports the FDA’s Advanced Manufacturing initiative.
Understanding the power of this approach, AspenTech has continued to grow its portfolio of modernized PAT technology, launched by the acquisition and continued development of Aspen ProMVR (since 2016), and further accelerated with the recent acquisition of Aspen Unscrambler and Aspen Process PulseTM from Camo AnalyticsTM (in 2020). Together these tools make AspenTech’s approach to PAT more connected, informative and empowering than any other solution on the market, taking modernized PAT to a whole new level. Fast forward to 2021 and we are excited to announce that the AspenTech PAT portfolio has been honored with a Pharma Manufacturing 2021 Pharma Innovation Award! The Pharma Innovation Awards celebrate technologies contributing to advancements in risk reduction, product quality improvement and manufacturing efficiency. According to Pharma Manufacturing, the 20 products selected are a “tribute to those who listen to the needs of the market and their customers, and as a result, have distinguished themselves as leaders in pharmaceutical equipment and technology.”
This award from Pharma Manufacturing lends credence to the pioneering work of our key AspenTech teams that continue to listen to our customers and innovate to lead the industry with the AspenTech PAT portfolio. Customers can rapidly improve production outcomes through the combination of the process optimization tools in Aspen ProMV and the advanced analytical tools, including for spectroscopic instruments, in Aspen Unscrambler and Aspen Process Pulse. Aspen ProMV easily maps the process design space from historical operating data and then literally in seconds uses modern numerical optimization to discover the ideal operating conditions that balance quality against maximized yield and throughput, all while navigating within practical process constraints. Complementary to this, Aspen Unscrambler and Aspen Process Pulse work together to enable much richer information on the state of the process and product through the rapid development and deployment of advanced analytical sensors such as near infrared, Raman, etc. This takes product quality assurance and process optimization (in combination with Aspen ProMV) to a whole new level in terms of speed and effectiveness.
Customer success with the AspenTech PAT portfolio
In an October 2021 webinar Ferring Pharmaceuticals demonstrated how they were able to use Aspen Unscrambler and Aspen Process Pulse to transition from batch to continuous manufacturing, reduce their cost of goods sold (COGS) by 25% and deliver real-time release testing (RTRT) that enables product to be certified as it is produced so that it can be immediately shipped to customers with full assurance of quality. In a similar vein, one of the top ten pharma companies was, this past year, able to leverage the process optimization tools in Aspen ProMV to drive a 2% yield increase in a reaction process, learned directly from the data of past operation. This unlocks additional production and profit margin without the need for additional capital investment.
In addition, at Thermo Fisher Scientific Aspen Process Pulse enabled continuous manufacturing of solid dose products. Via connection to a process control system, real-time output from Aspen Process Pulse triggers appropriate actions to keep the process under control. This ensures product quality and improves productivity, while reducing total cost of supply. Jack Qian, Staff Scientist at Thermo Fisher had this to say: “Comprehensive functions, flexible configurations and fast support from Aspen Process Pulse ensures the successful deployment of our Process Analytical Technology (PAT) applications in real world manufacturing.”
With the AspenTech PAT portfolio and across its entire technology stack, AspenTech delivers 40 years of process industry expertise in our commitment to solve our customers’ toughest challenges. This is evidenced in the benefits that customers like Thermo Fisher and Ferring Pharmaceuticals have seen in securing product quality and boosting production while reducing cost.
The pharmaceutical industry is changing rapidly, and manufacturers require innovative, proven solutions to help them navigate volatility and embrace digitalization to maximize performance, reliability and returns. AspenTech constantly strives to meet these requirements for its customers and is honored our efforts continue to be recognized, most recently by Pharma Manufacturing. We feel energized to continue to press into the needs of our customers and innovate to meet those needs as we and our customers continue this journey together!
For more information about the AspenTech PAT portfolio, check out our new Solution Brief.
Leave A Comment