Serialization Innovation: Latest Technologies at the Service of the Pharmaceutical Industry
Written by The Adents TeamToday’s pharmaceutical and life sciences industries face many challenges: the proliferation of chronic diseases, patients who forget taking their medicines (thus causing significant health costs), the increasing cost of developing new drugs, and the curse of falsified medicines have become global public health issues, as Laurent Curny, CEO of Microsoft Services, pointed out at the recent Serialization Innovation Summit in Paris.
During the Summit, Adents, together with its partners Microsoft and Siemens and high profile speakers from Medicines for Europe, Healthcare Distribution Alliance (HDA), GS1, and experts from all parts of the pharmaceutical supply chain explained in detail the impact of serialization regulations on the industry and offered insights into latest technologies available to help solve these challenges.
Blockchain technology for the pharmaceutical supply chain
In light of challenges such as data sharing and connectivity between the various players in the pharmaceutical supply chain, blockchain will be the must-have technology in the Track&Trace solutions market. Through blockchain technology, each transaction on the pharmaceutical supply chain that is recorded in the blockchain database is digitally signed and mathematically guaranteed to be genuine and tamper-proof and can be shared with everyone in real time. Accroding to Marc Gardette, Cloud Strategy Director at Microsoft:
“Blockchain technology “can really revolutionize the approach to healthcare by giving patients, for example, information that helps them understand, control and manage their personal health decisions, or help care teams improve their diagnosis and results with real-time access to accurate information.”
The digital transformation of the pharmaceutical supply chain
The fourth or digital revolution (after the industrial revolution in the 19th century, followed by electricity and automation) will impact healthcare and drive the digital transformation of the pharma supply chain and the digitalization of the whole value chain. However, to reap the benefits of digitalization, it requires a holistic approach – one that integrates product design, production planning, production execution and services to the customer explained Andrew Whytock, Head of Digitalization and Innovation, Pharmaceutical Business at Siemens.
Digitalization - Pharma goes paperless with the electronic Batch Record
A good example of digitalization is the eBR (electronic Batch Record), digital twin of the MasterBatch Record (MBR). The MasterBatch Record (MBR) is a recording model of the production of a pharmaceutical batch that ensures that every detail is recorded. By linking serialization technologies to the eBR, as Nicolas Teissié, Industry Software Product Manager at Siemens explained
“we offer full visibility on the traceability of the batch, from the first stages of creation to the last stages of the supply chain.“
Technologies of the future at the service of the pharma industry
New technologies like Triage bots and artificial intelligence (AI) will transform our approach to healthcare and provide opportunities for the pharmaceutical supply chain. These innovative technologies were demonstrated with insightful use cases by Microsoft’s Eneric Lopez, Director of Program Management for Innovation, Startups and Developers (Cochrane Transformation Project) and Evlampia Thoreau who demonstrated Microsoft HoloLens. This standalone computer integrated with eyewear creates mixed reality, an environment that combines the best of virtual reality and augmented reality by displaying extremely realistic digital elements and holograms in the actual environment of the user. This innovation opens up exciting prospects for real-time interaction of operators throughout the pharmaceutical supply chain.
The Adents Serialization Innovation Summit
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