4 ways to reduce costs in the pharmaceutical process while guaranteeing quality 

The pharmaceutical industry continuously faces new challenges. With high research costs and high productivity and reliability, pharma manufacturing companies must provide consistently high quality at lower cost. And as we’ve seen with Covid, companies are now needing to increase their speed to market. 

All of this makes innovative solutions increasingly important in the pharmaceutical process. We’ve seen how manufacturers can cut costs while improving operational excellence by using innovative measurement technology and maintenance concepts and we have many ideas on where to start. 

To control your costs, you may consider: 

1. Optimizing calibration or installing self-calibrating temperature measurement devices 

Temperature is one of the main critical measurement points in a bioprocess with strong impact on both cell kinetics and solubility of dissolved gases. Temperature influences reaction kinetics, cell growth, cell viability and product formation. Therefore narrow-band temperature control and frequent calibration is necessary to meet pharmaceutical process requirements and accuracy. 

To ensure optimum output and quality, temperature devices should be calibrated regularly. In critical applications a six-month interval is common. Using innovative measurement technology can reduce calibration effort and costs significantly. Which is why we developed the world’s first self-calibration temperature sensor TrustSens TM371. This innovative device offers you fully automated, traceable, inline self-calibration that will help you eliminate nonconformities or undetected failures. 

2. Standardizing your installed assets, optimizing your stock and increasing the availability of spare parts 

Uniform operation and quick replacement of devices: this might sound easy, but it is not. Gaining and maintaining full transparency of the many installed assets in your plant over time is a constant challenge that significantly increases maintenance efforts. 

Analyzing your installed assets is the first step to optimize maintenance and plant availability. During this process, our experts can identify obsolete or outdated instruments which can then be easily replaced. Not only will your spare parts logistics drastically improve by standardizing your assets, you will also be able to improve and streamline your training efforts in a standardized environment. 

3. Integrating and evaluating diagnostic data and verify instrument functionality 

Maintenance and calibration are often considered a time and cost intensive nuisance. However, both maintenance and calibration are key when it comes to safeguarding process reliability and product quality. 

Instruments equipped with Heartbeat Technology significantly extend test cycles and supply standardized diagnostic notifications for cost-effective maintenance. The technology offers simple and easy monitoring of the measurement points during daily operation. Errors are recognized in an early stage and production downtime is minimized. Instrument verification validates that all critical components are working properly within the defined specification. 

4. Optimizing your water production and distribution loop 

In order to prevent bioburden, water must be continuously in motion at a flow speed above 2 m/sec. Reliable flow measurement is thus fundamentally important and critical measurement points must be calibrated regularly. When it comes to purified water and water for injection conductivity is the main quality parameter. The limits defined in the pharmacopeias must always be met. 

With Heartbeat Technology our instruments provide reliable self-monitoring and help optimize your calibration procedures, especially in continuous processes. This directly results in higher plant availability and productivity. In PW and WFI non temperature compensated conductivity measurement in the low range is a basic requirement. The system calibration in the distribution loop is an efficient way to assure regulatory compliance.  

To optimize your water production, we offer: 

• Highly accurate flow measurement 

• Reliable conductivity monitoring 
• Easy and fast calibration 
• Self-diagnostic and effortless verification 

Learn more about optimizing your pharmaceutical process!