Pharmaceutical Manufacturing: Trends, Growth, and Solutions

Pharmaceutical Manufacturing: Trends, Growth, and Solutions

Revolutionize Your Pharma Manufacturing with PEC

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In today’s ever-changing world, treating disease is a constant goal that requires a careful balance of science, innovation, and technology. As such, the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry has played a crucial role in enabling the development and production of responsive drugs that enhance and prolong human life. 

Central to this is data analytics, which has provided unprecedented insights into the complex molecular interactions involved in treating a wide range of diseases. 

Quality control and drug delivery systems have also become key trends, helping to ensure that products are safe and effective. 

Finally, clinical trials and expanding product lines continue to drive growth in the pharma industry, suggesting that the right processing systems and solutions will be vital in taking this essential field to the next level.

A Snapshot of the Pharmaceutical Industry Today

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The pharmaceutical industry is going through a period of steady and sustained growth, with total worldwide pharma revenue reaching $1.42 trillion in 2021.

The United States currently takes the top spot when it comes to markets, making more than $600 billion in 2022 alone, while other key established markets include Europe, Canada, Japan, and Australia.

Besides these developed markets, it’s worth noting emerging markets like India, China, Russia, and Brazil are currently showing the most rapid spikes in pharmaceutical sales. In fact, a recent report by IQVIA says that Africa, Asia, and Latin America will see the most significant growth in the period up to 2027, while it slows in North America and Europe.

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Drivers for Growth

The report also identifies drivers for this growth. To start with, quite simply the use of medicine has been growing steadily over the past decade, though it’s set to slow through to 2027. A key reason for this is that access is opening up, notably in the quoted emerging markets, and populations are growing too.

The IQVIA report also identifies some noteworthy trends — for example, the Covid-19 pandemic has had a dual impact on the pharmaceutical industry. While newly developed vaccines have boosted pharma manufacturing, demand for other types of drugs has lagged, although it’s expected to rally in the coming months and years.

The report goes on to say that spending on specialty medicine is an important area of growth, set to represent 56% of overall spending in developed markets in 2027. This includes drugs to treat cancer, including new and innovative products, and therapies for more unusual neurological conditions, migraines, and Alzheimer’s disease.

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The Era of Biopharmaceuticals and AI

Now is also the era of biopharmaceuticals — therapies created from living organisms or cells using innovative methods. Examples include gene and cell therapies. These drugs have the ability to provide targeted treatments, allowing precise solutions to specific problems.

Fortune Business Insights says that the global biopharmaceutical market is expected to attain $26.49 billion in 2028, illustrating its exponential growth.

No overview of trends is complete without acknowledging artificial intelligence (AI). In pharma manufacturing, it helps create an improved product by identifying diseases and selecting targeted therapies.

AI also plays a vital role in quality assurance, detecting equipment faults and monitoring product quality. And by processing large volumes of data, it can even pinpoint themes to enable continuous, innovative improvement.

The Manufacturing Process Step-by-Step

Quality and Safety with Capsule and Tablet Presses

To get a complete picture of the pharmaceutical industry today, let’s take a look at the manufacturing process, step-by-step:

  • Blending: To create a finished product, non-active ingredients are added to the active pharmaceutical ingredient. This means that there are lots of variables — such as the particle size, moisture content, and ability of the blend to flow — to take into account.
  • Granulation: The granulation process entails the collection of small particles to make larger particles, known as granules. Both dry and wet methods are used in granulation. Dry granulation involves the compression of a mixture of powder and the formation of flakes. Wet granulation involves the addition of liquid into a powder mixture. The two processes ultimately lead to the formation of granules.
  • Milling: The process involves using equipment (jet mills or hammer mills) to reduce the size of drug powder particles. This process aims to improve the solubility and uniformity of the drug powder.
  • Continuous manufacturing: The method involves an end-to-end process that is uninterrupted. The process combines feeding, testing, and processing systems. The process is appealing because it reduces issues with supply chains, improves production times, provides improved products, and reduces human errors.
  • Coating: The coating process is essential to improving the drug’s stability, taste, and appearance by adding thin layers of materials on the drug’s surface. Some materials used in the coating process include sugars, polymers, metals, and waxes.

Clearly, this process is a finely balanced one, requiring excellence and precision from its equipment, processes, and quality assurance system — we’re going to look at how to optimize manufacturing for a consistently reliable and quality product in the next section.

How PEC Optimizes the Manufacturing Process

Pharmaceutical Manufacturing engineer

It’s clear that this strong and growing sector requires robust drug manufacturing processes that include the highest level of quality assurance to take it to the next level.

That’s where PEC comes in — our business provides custom solutions for the drug manufacturing process. Custom because no two clients are the same, and each has their own individual challenges, goals, and expectations.

There’s a common goal though. All our pharmaceutical manufacturing automation solutions are designed to increase quality and efficiency while reducing costs, addressing human error, and ensuring that health and safety protocols are maintained in the process.

How do we do this? By providing cutting-edge process automation systems that perform many tasks not just accurately but smartly. So key tasks like mixing, weighing packaging, and handling are carried out consistently and accurately, cutting out the risk of human error.

Our pharmaceutical automation systems also include sensors to provide essential data, enabling continuous assessment and improvement of the product.

This data forms an essential part of our maintenance services too, so we know when to schedule tasks to minimize interruptions and downtime, ensuring equipment works efficiently and productivity is high.

Learn More About PEC’s Responsive and Customized Solutions

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It’s clear that the pharmaceutical manufacturing sector is experiencing a time of rapid growth and expansion.

This calls for more responsive and customized solutions to keep pace with progress.

That’s exactly our mission at PEC, dedicating every resource to provide the most advanced, cost-effective, and consistently excellent and safe solutions for manufacturing companies, including the pharma industry.

Learn more about how we can help grow your business by scheduling a consultation today.

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