Smart factory technology

Lab automation specialist Beckman Coulter Life Sciences has appointed Cardinal Health veteran Suzanne Foster as president. Foster served as Cardinal Health’s President Health-at-Home subsidiary from January 2020 to March 2022. She has more than 25 years of experience in the healthcare industry, and also sits on the boards of several companies. Foster has also served…

Automation company Comau has introduced the ruggedized Racer-5 Sensitive Environments (Racer-5 SE) robot for use in the pharmaceutical, health and beauty, food and beverage and electronics industries. The robot is designed to support the demands of cleanrooms and other sensitive environments with significant controls against contamination. The Racer-5 can be used in grade 6 ISO…

Thanks to a donation from pharma industry veteran William D. Young, Purdue University has announced plans to launch a new institute dedicated to furthering pharmaceutical manufacturing to reduce costs and bolster access to new biotech drugs. The William D. Young Institute for Advanced Manufacturing of Pharmaceuticals is named after the eponymous chemical engineer, who graduated…

The pharmaceutical industry is gradually going green. More pharma companies are embracing sustainability metrics and striving to reduce corporate emissions and their footprint. More than 25% of major pharma and biopharma companies are committed to reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Many are also committed to ensuring equal access to medicine for the 2 billion people worldwide that are currently…

The world of application development is changing, and it’s changing fast. Traditionally, embarking on the app development journey meant hiring a team of developers to write every single line of code or settling for limitations imposed by commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products. However, today more and more pharma companies are opting for a faster, easier and…

Pharma 4.0 projects may have gotten off to a slow start, but they have ramped up recently. Big Pharma has led the charge in deploying Pharma 4.0 projects, which involve the use of digital technology to draw operational efficiency. “It makes sense because a lot of these digital technologies have a big dollar sign with…

Walvax (SHE: 300142) recently formed a strategic collaboration with Honeywell (Nasdaq: HON) that led to the construction of China’s first mRNA COVID-19 vaccine production plant. The company has been working since 2017 to become a leading vaccine R&D company, recounted Shawn Opatka, vice president, life sciences, Honeywell Process Solutions. “Their goals accelerated the construction of…

The quality analysis tools driving speed to market are now built right into the control system.  It is more important than ever for pharmaceutical manufacturers to deliver treatments quickly and cost-effectively around the globe. With the world’s new focus on rapid results, gone are the days when product could sit in work-in-progress (WIP) for days,…

Sustainability continues to be a hot topic, and the pharmaceutical industry faces pressure to reduce its carbon footprint. As a result, a growing number of pharma companies are stepping up sustainability efforts. In a growing number of locations, pharma companies are seeing drivers in the regulatory environment to force them to prioritize sustainability. “We’re seeing…

While COVID-19 has led to an uptick in remote inspections and virtual training, Avatour was working on its remote presence platform before the pandemic. The San Francisco startup’s CEO, Devon Copley, was the head of product, VR platform for Nokia from 2015 to 2017, where he was involved in creating a novel Nokia OZO 360°…