Evaluating the Business Case for Continuous Manufacturing of Pharmaceuticals: A Supply Network perspective

This chapter addresses the challenges of evaluating the business case for continuous manufacturing of pharmaceuticals, looking beyond traditional technical assessments made at the unit operations or individual production facility level. It provides an overview of key concepts, approaches and tools for the early assessment of supply network configuration opportunities enabled by continuous production processing interventions. Multiple levels of analysis are considered with the aid of examples based on major UK research programmes on continuous production process technologies. Particular emphasis is placed on the potential for achieving enhanced product flexibility (in terms of volume and variety) and depending on scale, the optimum number and location of manufacturing operations to support speed to market and system-level cost benefits. In the case of multiple manufacturing operations using continuous production process technologies, where production facility replication through digital twins is becoming a key enabler, the chapter sets out a supply network design and analysis approach that evaluates the commercial and operational viability of alternative manufacturing supply network scenarios