IDMA Paves Way For Indian Pharma To Create Roadmap In Digitisation Era

Bengaluru, 8 June 2019: Indian pharma is in the process of transforming itself to be connected to devices, adopt data analytics and artificial intelligence technologies to automate its production processes in the years to come.

Some of these Smart Technologies are Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Social Media Technology, Nanotechnology and usage of Drones that will increase the speed of delivery.

In its efforts to adopt QUALITY 4.0 which is an era of digitisation to facilitate innovation and connectivity between process and technology, Indian pharma is looking at a digital makeover in manufacturing, laboratories and supply chain management, said Kaushik Desai, Quality Management and Technical Committee member, IDMA.

The industry is aware of the real-time visibility, intelligent decision support and improved communication between people, systems and machines. The market drivers of digitisation are intense global competition, uncertainties in energy and supply costs, rising labour costs, demand for personalised products, decreasing product lifecycle and exponential growth in information technology, stated Desai.

The technical document ‘Quality 4.0: Digital Technology of the Future’ published by IDMA's Quality Management and Technical committee, provides an overview of the technologies that are expected to bring in more efficiency and transparency in business processes. This was released by the chief guest Annaswamy Vaidheesh, VP, South Asia & Managing Director, India GSK Pharmaceuticals and President, OPPI during the IDMA 21st Pharmaceutical Analysts’ Convention recently.

The future of pharmaceutical scenario will be an era of digitisation. The scope of this document includes a brief overview of various types of approaches of digitisation in the forthcoming era of Quality 4.0. It deals with trends and applications of Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robotics, Cloud Computing, Internet of Things, Augmented and Virtual Reality, Blockchain, Mobile Technology and Integrated Quality Management in pharmaceutical quality operations, stated its authors Kaushik Desai and Dr. Satish Desai who compiled this new emerging technological evolution for the benefit of quality professionals.

In order to adopt Quality 4.0, pharma companies are eyeing increase in quality, productivity and revenue by using the power of advanced data analytics. It will minimize risk and waste as it evolves around simulation and control of manufacturing processes with real-time monitoring. As cross functional teams invest in automated validation, reporting and analytics, it is expected to see quality departments align their corporate objectives related to operational and economic performance. The quality data to improve manufacturing performance and compliance remains the top-quality objective for pharma industry, Desai told Pharmabiz.

A Pharma 4.0 initiative would not only fix agility and productivity challenges, but will provide better instruments to enforce product safety and supply chain security. Now Quality 4.0 deals with the digital revolution which encompasses pharma manufacturing, quality and supply chain, said the authors.

The emergence of the Internet has already enabled enterprise efficiencies. Everyone in the pharma industry will have to focus on Quality 4.0 technologies. They will need to solve inefficiencies caused by fragmented systems and manual metrics calculations. Digitisation will bolster high quality performance with minimal cross-functional ownership and ineffective supplier communication, among others, Desai said.Pharmabiz