With the rapid development of science and technology, automation technology gradually penetrates into various industries. As a strategic emerging industry in China, the biopharmaceutical industry is of great significance to the national economy and social development. In recent years, the biopharmaceutical industry, under the pressure of market competition, has increasingly high requirements for production efficiency, cost control and quality. Process automation, as an effective means to improve production efficiency, reduce costs and ensure product quality, has become an inevitable choice for the transformation and upgrading of biopharmaceutical enterprises.

This paper will discuss the application value of process automation in the biopharmaceutical industry from the current situation of the biopharmaceutical industry, process automation technology, application cases and development trends.

1. Current Situation and Challenges in the Biopharmaceutical Industry

Status of the Industry

The biopharmaceutical industry is characterized by high technology, high risk, high investment and long cycle. In recent years, China's biopharmaceutical industry has achieved remarkable results, with an expanding market scale and a gradual increase in innovation capacity. However, compared with the international advanced level, China's biopharmaceutical industry still has a certain gap.

challenges

(1) Low production efficiency: many parts of the production process of biopharmaceuticals still rely on manual operation, resulting in low production efficiency.

(2) Difficulty in cost control: rising labor costs, coupled with material wastage in the production process, make biopharmaceutical companies face greater cost pressure.

(3) High quality risk: manual operation is difficult to ensure the stability of product quality, especially in the key links, a slight error may lead to the whole batch of products scrapped.

2. Application of process automation technology in the biopharmaceutical industry

Process optimization

Process automation technology realizes the automation of the production process through the optimization of biopharmaceutical process flow , intelligentization. Specifically in the following aspects:

(1) automation control system: the use of PLC, DCS and other control systems to achieve real-time monitoring of the production process, automatic adjustment and fault warning.

(2) Robot application: introduce robots in handling, sorting, testing, etc. to improve production efficiency and reduce labor costs.

(3) Informatization management: Realize real-time collection, analysis and traceability of production data through MES, LIMS and other information systems.

Automation of key links

(1) Cell culture: adopting the automated cell culture system to realize on-line monitoring, automatic replenishment and pH adjustment of cell culture process.

(2) Protein purification: using automated purification system to realize automatic switching, gradient elution and collection of protein purification process.

(3) Preparation production: using automated preparation production line to realize the continuous and closed process of preparation production.

3. Development trend

Depth integration: the biopharmaceutical industry is deeply integrated with automation, informationization, and intelligent technology to achieve full automation of the production process.

Modularization: process automation equipment to modularization, integration direction, reduce enterprise investment costs, improve production flexibility.

Data-driven: intelligent decision-making in biopharmaceutical production process supported by big data and artificial intelligence.

Green: Process automation technology helps biopharmaceutical companies realize green production and reduce energy consumption and pollutant emissions.

In short, the application of process automation technology in the biopharmaceutical industry has a bright future. Enterprises should seize the opportunity, increase investment, and promote the biopharmaceutical industry to achieve high-quality development.