The biopharmaceutical sector is a thriving hub of activity in Ireland, with some €90bn worth of products produced annually across 75 companies based here, accounting for over 60 per cent of all exports. Over the last decade, €10bn has been invested in new biopharmaceutical production facilities around the country and over 80,000 people are either directly or indirectly employed in the sector.
But it is not without its bespoke challenges, something the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Technology Centre (PMTC), at University of Limerick, has worked hard to address through industry lead research since it was established 10 years ago with Enterprise Ireland funding, in partnership with IDA Ireland. PMTC is an applied research and innovation centre focused on using advanced, PhD talent-driven technology and analytics to address contemporary manufacturing issues impacting process effectiveness and sustainability in the pharmaceutical sector. PMTC has a range of capabilities to support industry in addressing these challenges through experimental and modelling research techniques, including optimised manufacturing, maintenance and cleaning across a company’s product portfolio mix taking account of their facility and equipment design. The centre’s new director, Damon Warnock, said his role builds upon industry-academia collaboration successes, expanding the biopharmaceutical sector’s access to, and usage of, effective technology and data analytics solutions within their business processes.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity being part of this amazingly talented organisation delivering impactful research results to key biopharmaceutical industry challenges,” says Warnock of his transition from 30 years in industry establishing effective process, technology and data analytics capabilities across R&D and commercial operations, to his recent role in research and academia.
“It was something I’d been considering for several years so when the opportunity arose, I decided to take it. Within my first three months, we’ve completed a comprehensive review of the centre’s phase three business plan with Enterprise Ireland, completing an EI contracted international panel review in July.
“As the biopharmaceutical industry experiences ever increasing efficiency demands, their ability to invest resources integrating research solutions beyond local deployment into holistic infrastructure improvements is stretched. I aim to leverage my experience, informing research programs in addressing this need.”
Situated within UL’s Bernal Institute, Warnock is well suited to the new role, having worked for over 30 years in the industry, for global biopharmaceutical company Alkermes and previously with Irish firm Elan. His industry work has seen him collaborate with the centre on several projects over the years.
“Core focus areas for PMTC are developing advanced cleaning, process and data analytics techniques to address biopharma industry needs. Numerous research programmes, in collaboration with several of our research partners (Munster Technological University, Technological University of the Shannon, Atlantic Technological University, Technological University of Dublin, University College Cork, University of Galway and Trinity College Dublin), have been performed to meet these needs.
It’s a wonderful opportunity being part of this amazingly talented organisation delivering impactful research results to key biopharmaceutical industry challenges
“Part of this research involved developing methodologies with several of our members around cleaning and solvent usage reduction. Resultant industry impacts were up to 40 per cent reduction in solvent use, increased available production times by 15 per cent, and 10 per cent reduction in changeover times. Collectively, when estimating these with our members, the cost analysis shows that over the next five to 10 years, there could be over €200m in savings for the sector through adoption of these improvements.”
“PMTC produces excellent research in data analytics and has developed a risk-based methodology framework to improve trust in data analytical utilisation in the biopharma sector. A research paper‘ FoReSight: Trusting and Using the Information from Data Analytics to Support Decision-Making in Pharmaceutical Manufacturing’ by principal investigator Marcus O’Mahony was published in the online Journal of Applied Pharmaceutical Regulatory Science, May 2024. There are indications that by applying this framework, hundreds of thousands can be saved by companies, which is very beneficial.”
Warnock said PMTC has conducted a wealth of industry-led research innovation programmes supporting companies across the Irish biopharmaceutical sector, also targeting talent development and training initiatives to help the sector grow, create jobs and deliver significant wider economic impact. It also plays a key role in creating an effective platform for Irish small and medium-sized enterprises to engage and work with the national biopharmaceutical sector.
“Across our history, more than 70 research projects have been performed, resulting in over 200,000 research hours. Over 30 training events have been held, providing 4,000 hours of training across the industry sector,” he said. “Our aim is to build on PMTC’s successes to date, by fully realising the value of exceptional talent driven, industry lead research collaboration, maintaining pharma industry as a key component of Ireland’s industry infrastructure.”
For more information, or if you are interested in joining the PMTC membership model see pmtc.ie