Industry 4.0 and Drug Manufacturing

What Does it Mean for Parenterals?

Industry 4.0, the latest development in the manufacturing revolution, follows the advances made with mechanization (water and steam power), mass production (electricity), and computers and automation (microcircuitry). What this fourth movement offers manufacturing is, in many ways, a fusion of features of the second and third. Industry 4.0 takes all the functional, monitoring and communication capacities of computers and automation and assembles them as cyber physical systems—systems that can enhance the value chain efficiently and securely on a large scale. For parenteral drug manufacturers, this presents significant opportunities and challenges.