Data Analytics to Become Central Pillar of Biomanufacturing

The pharmaceutical industry could get more efficient by more efficiently using data produced by bioprocessing. That’s according to Michael Sokolov, PhD, co-founder and COO of DataHow.
In an exclusive interview, he explained that the pharma industry needs to, “to use fewer resources while operating in a more efficient way” to master the well-documented pressures of an aging population, biosimilars and new therapeutics. And since, he argues, companies only use an estimated 6% of their data, “data must become a central pillar in terms of [use of] resources.” Amgen, for example, he says, invested more than saved $100 million in digitizing their data, and  he argues the business case for digitization will become clearer over the next few years.DataHow, a spinoff company from ETH Zurich, has developed an algorithmic toolbox to analyze biomanufacturing processes. The aim, he says, is to help process operators with decision planning and to aid automation as part of Industry 4.0. After acquiring their first customer in 2017, he says the company now works with large pharmaceutical clients, such as Sanofi and Merck.