Digitalization in biotechnology

Personalized medicine with genetic data, new drug development opportunities, and shorter research cycles: This not only enables diagnoses to be made in a more targeted manner, but also make individualized treatments a reality. Rather than using a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to medications, personalized medicine provides drugs tailored to the disease and even the individual patient. The goal is to be able to treat suffering more efficiently and more successfully, and ultimately to save lives. 

Research is happening all over the world, with the smartest minds and latest devices spread across the globe. In the past, this meant that each research team worked independently. Exchange and cooperation were only possible with a lot of effort and patience. Today—thanks to digitization—researchers come together virtually, regardless of location. Tools such as Microsoft Teams and Outlook bring together researchers who were previously scattered around the globe to enable them to work on common (virtual) ground. And don’t forget cloud solutions. They are key to mobile working and cross-location collaboration. A future-proof ERP system is cloud-ready. Whether a private or public cloud solution is better suited for a company is always a case-by-case decision.

The third major benefit of digitalization in the biotechnology industry follows on from the location-independent collaboration. By making it easier to share experiences, ideas, and data, the development cycle is reduced, and innovations reach the market faster. But simplified data analyses and simulations also accelerate research work—another focus that ensures that new insights can be gained more quickly. The appropriate features can also be found in the ERP or a suitable ERP industry solution. R&D modules facilitate the development and management of recipes and parts lists, enable targeted production releases, and take product characteristics into account. A combination that works.

As the company saves time, efficiency increases and manual deviations become rarer. What sounds like a dream is made possible by automation and robotics for production. Robots are well suited to take over repetitive tasks as they don’t have routines, so don’t fall into the trap of making careless mistakes or misunderstandings. This results in a decrease of errors. Employees also save time, which they can use for their more important tasks in production planning, production control, or elsewhere.

Manual controls are good, but prone to error. Why is that? Employees’ ability to concentrate is influenced by mindless repetition, distraction, and a sense of their well-being. Robots and sensors work according to fixed patterns; there are no deviations. The hidden trick — the Internet of Things, or IoT. This uses sensors to establish the appropriate connections between devices and reports any need for action. A typical example is the refrigerator, which uses sensors to detect that the milk carton is missing and automatically reorders it. In biotechnology, errors are avoided, production and laboratory processes can be reliably monitored, and the result meets the highest quality standards.

The secret to successful business operations is good planning. Digital tools in general, and software such as enterprise resource planning solutions in particular, help to get the most out of them. They not only compile company data and digital workflows centrally, but also trigger these as well as work steps. Business and laboratory processes run more purposefully, resources are better allocated, and operations run with more results. Another way to efficiently depicting workflows digitally is low-code software, such as Microsoft Power Platform. The focus of the toolbox is on ancillary processes that are both cumbersome and time-consuming, and are therefore ideally suited for automation. A significant advantage is the low-code technology, because without being a programming expert, users implement the use cases themselves.