Publication

Transforming development productivity through integrated automation

The FDA initiative ‘Process Analytical Technologies’ is slowly gaining ground, which will help bring a revolution in the manufacturing and testing processes that ensure product quality. It will encourage faster testing techniques that bring analytical testing ever closer to at-line or on-line testing during product manufacture.

In parallel with this, there will always be the need for more off-line testing during development (eg stability testing) and for the foreseeable future testing for QC release in manufacturing. There has never been more pressure to transform and optimize these testing processes through the strategic application of automation and new technology.

“So why are there no automated solutions for Development?” complains a major pharma VP. “I can go to any show and see stacks of systems for discovery. I sometimes feel like getting hold of those vendors and shaking them until they tell me why they have nothing for development.”

Forward-looking pharmaceutical companies are waking up to the benefits of end-to-end automation of development testing, and are asking why there are no suitable solutions on the market. The answer is that solutions for development are, in fact, now emerging. These solutions then carry forward to manufacturing where the burden of scale-up and method transfer is radically reduced.