Digital Twin solution within the global pharmaceutical industry

Atos and Siemens are work­ing togeth­er with the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal  indus­try to improve pro­duc­tion with an inno­v­a­tive solu­tion based on a dig­i­tal repli­ca of the phar­ma pro­duc­tion process. Cur­rent­ly being test­ed in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try, this inno­v­a­tive “Process Dig­i­tal Twin” for phar­ma man­u­fac­tur­ing – pow­ered by IoT, AI and Advanced Ana­lyt­ics – is designed to pro­vide improved effi­cien­cy and flex­i­bil­i­ty in the man­u­fac­tur­ing of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal products.

Based on the pilot study, this poten­tial­ly dis­rup­tive solu­tion opens up new oppor­tu­ni­ties, such as a sus­tain­able process devel­op­ment – reduc­ing over­all exper­i­men­ta­tion time and waste, ensur­ing con­stant qual­i­ty and mov­ing to new “qual­i­ty by design” mod­els to get the prod­uct right the first time. The solu­tion also offers opti­mized mea­sures for process qual­i­ty and reliability.

The pro­duc­tion and release of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prod­ucts are com­plex and lengthy process­es. To meet these chal­lenges, one of Atos and Siemens’ glob­al phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal part­ners has decid­ed to test a new inno­v­a­tive solu­tion, built and devel­oped through a joint invest­ment and busi­ness col­lab­o­ra­tion from the Atos-Siemens strate­gic glob­al alliance. The “Process Dig­i­tal Twin” is a com­plete vir­tu­al repli­ca of a spe­cif­ic step in the man­u­fac­tur­ing process, con­nect­ed with IoT sen­sors installed on the actu­al plant.

It gen­er­ates vol­umes of com­plex data and gives an instant view of all details of the oper­a­tions. By pair­ing vir­tu­al and phys­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tions of the process, and using pre­dic­tive mod­els and real-time ana­lyt­ics, Atos and Siemens are help­ing the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try to rein­vent key ele­ments of the man­u­fac­tur­ing environment.

“We are delight­ed to bring dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies to the heart of the glob­al phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try, help­ing it meet the mul­ti­ple health chal­lenges of today and tomor­row.” says Paul Alba­da Jel­gers­ma, SVP, Glob­al Head of Codex ser­vices for IoT & Siemens Mind­Sphere at Atos. “With the Process Dig­i­tal Twin devel­oped by Atos and Siemens, a sol­id dig­i­tal foot­print of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prod­ucts is cre­at­ed through­out the process devel­op­ment cycle, start­ing from the design phase, all the way to production.”

“Dig­i­tal­iza­tion at every point along the val­ue chain will like­ly help the phar­ma indus­try get phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals from the lab to the patient more swift­ly.” says Rebec­ca Van­genecht­en, Head of busi­ness Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Indus­try at Siemens. “This was a chal­leng­ing jour­ney where the part­ners cre­at­ed the basis for future process devel­op­ment & man­u­fac­tur­ing, based on sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and innovation”.

Atos pro­vides its exper­tise in IT infra­struc­ture, con­sult­ing, inte­gra­tion and data sci­ence, notably from its Codex exper­tise in AI and IoT solu­tions and ser­vices – while Siemens pro­vides its Dig­i­tal Enter­prise exper­tise in OT sys­tems for Phar­ma, notably with Simat­ic Sipat for real-time qual­i­ty mon­i­tor­ing and Star­C­CM+ & HEEDS for process mod­el­ing & simulation.

The nature of Atos and Siemens’ pre-inte­grat­ed Dig­i­tal Twin solu­tion allows it to be deployed to pro­duc­tion process­es of any scale or com­plex­i­ty. By adjust­ing the tech­no­log­i­cal build­ing blocks Atos and Siemens can repli­cate Dig­i­tal Twin use case to every new client – with­in phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal, chem­i­cal, process man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­tries and oth­er mar­kets – more efficiently.