Industry 4.0 for pharmaceutical manufacturing: Preparing for the smart factories of the future

Over the last two centuries, medicines have evolved from crude herbal and botanical preparations into more complex manufacturing of sophisticated drug products and dosage forms. Along with the evolution of medicines, the manufacturing practices for their production have advanced from small-scale manual processing with simple tools to large-scale production as part of a trillion-dollar pharmaceutical industry. Today's pharmaceutical manufacturing technologies continue to evolve as the internet of things, artificial intelligence, robotics, and advanced computing begin to challenge the traditional approaches, practices, and business models for the manufacture of pharmaceuticals. The application of these technologies has the potential to dramatically increase the agility, efficiency, flexibility, and quality of the industrial production of medicines. How these technologies are deployed on the journey from data collection to the hallmark digital maturity of Industry 4.0 will define the next generation of pharmaceutical manufacturing. Acheiving the benefits of this future requires a vision for it and an understanding of the extant regulatory, technical, and logistical barriers to realizing it.

Automated summary

Over the past two centuries, medicines have evolved from crude herbal preparations to sophisticated drug products, with pharmaceutical manufacturing technologies continuing to advance. The application of modern technologies like IoT, AI, robotics and advanced computing is expected to enhance the agility, efficiency, flexibility, and quality of industrial production of medicines, shaping the future of pharmaceutical manufacturing. Vision and understanding of regulatory, technical, and logistical barriers are essential for realizing the benefits of these technologies.