Enabling Our Modern Way of Life – Life Sciences

It is unquestionable that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on how we live our lives.

Looking back to the start of the pandemic, Canada was not able to manufacture a vaccine when we needed it.  Although Canada has a long and accomplished history in the life sciences, our manufacturing capacity has not kept pace with our international competitors, and we have become overly reliant on imported products.
 

The Canadian government hedged its bets by pre-ordering COVID-19 vaccines formulated by several different manufacturers.  The speed at which these drugs were developed was expedited by the pandemic and resulted in a massive change in the timeline of drug development.  We witnessed three vaccines be granted authorization for use just 11 months after the disease was discovered and sequenced – unprecedented!  

One factor impacting the speed of drug manufacturing was Emerson’s technology stack. Emerson has developed industry-leading digital tools for process development, control, and data analytics, bringing information together and enhancing visibility of this data plant wide. This “single source of truth” means deviations in production are often resolved in minutes, rather than hours or days, and ultimately helps products get to market faster while fortifying data integrity.