Keeping Up-to-Date with Biotech Automation at Takeda

Technology is changing the face of the industry and people need to jump on the train or get left behind. With that in mind, no wonder “The Future of Biotech Automation” attracted almost 100 ISPE members and guests to Takeda in Cambridge on January 18 where two experts in the field brought their topic to life and kept the crowd fully engaged.

First Charles Torres, Senior I&C Engineer from Sanofi Genzyme, spoke on EMI noise and how to deal with it in your process. If you don’t know about EMI noise and missed the presentation, I highly suggest you review it online here, as Charles had great examples of how different types of noise can negatively impact your process and how to deal with it before it gets out of control. These were all real life examples that you would see in a normal pharmaceutical facility every day. He explained that the biggest culprit is VFD’s on your pumps – a worthwhile piece of information to keep handy for future reference.

Next up was Rick Pierro, President of Superior Controls, who described the past, present, and future of the industry and how you need to be on board with technology or get left behind. He then discussed the reasons why the industry is heading toward continuous process and the benefits it brings to manufacturing. He also explained that the FDA is on board with companies moving in this direction for their operations, thus this trend will continue to grow.

After the presentations concluded, both speakers answered questions from the audience. When the meeting finally wrapped up at 9pm, we had enough questions to keep going well into the night, attesting to the seemingly endless wealth of knowledge and expertise the speakers were able to share with attendees.

In the words of Chapter President Jack Campion, “This was a great event…Two very engaging and interesting presentations by Rick Pierro on the future of biotech automation (far out stuff!) and Charlie Torres on electromagnetic interference; very practical advice on tracking down out-of-range issues that could be caused by “noise” …Also a great social networking session beforehand.”

Many thanks to Takeda Pharmaceutical for hosting the Chapter and providing a sumptuous spread of food and drink during the networking session; and to Commissioning Agents for sponsoring the event.

For information on upcoming educational programs like this one, click here to visit the Chapter website.