How innovation and responsibility contribute to patient’s well-being

In the health care industry, changes are occurring at a rapid pace. People, machines, and information are becoming even more interconnected. Meanwhile, unanticipated events such as the Covid-19 pandemic affect the pharma and biotech industry as well. To meet the needs of our customers, innovations at the interface between pharmaceutical products, services, and digital data must be accelerated. As a globally leading contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), Vetter is continuously engaged in this swiftness of change. This is achieved through the testing of future technology and the implementation of new digital systems as necessary. Given all the variabilities occurring within the industry, there is only one constant at Vetter: to sustainably improve the patients’ quality of life through the drugs we produce.

Vetter has an important responsibility. The injectable drugs we manufacture for our customers will, in turn, have a direct impact on patients around the world who rely on these drugs for their overall health and quality of life. As a family-owned business, Vetter knows that achieving the highest possible level of quality is the key to our overall strategy. In fact, digitalization is behind many of the advances the company has made in recent years. And while digital transformation is rooted in Vetter’s overall culture, it is not a self-serving approach to drug product manufacturing. Rather, it is an essential part of the job for the people that work at Vetter and allows us to support the quality of the products we manufacture.

Through our work, we produce critical therapies for e.g., the treatment of cancer, rheumatism, or multiple sclerosis, as well as medications for rare diseases. That is why the regulatory specifications in the pharmaceutical environment are very restrictive. We know that people’s lives depend on the drugs that we produce. Therefore, reliable, efficient, and safe processes are the very essence of our industry. For Vetter, that means overcoming a higher complexity and leveraging the many benefits of digitalization.

No time to wait

At Vetter, we have made digitalization a part of our daily business. Our company strategy, Vetter NExT 2029, is being developed in cooperation with our staff members in virtual workshops. In fact, many of the ideas and challenges that result from these workshops directly influence our digital roadmap. For example, within the scope of digitalizing central key processes, future factory processes are a part of our focus. We approach topics such as predictive maintenance, visual remote services, or intelligent worker assistance systems in order to reduce standstill and troubleshoot times on a significant level. We have also implemented artificial intelligence (AI) within the company through the successful usage of machine learning systems. Moreover, we are working on exciting projects such as generating text from data – the so-called natural language generation, as well as initiating complex forecasting projects within the context of controlling. In the future, we will rely on robotic process automation for recurring and clearly-defined tasks.

Innovation on a continuous basis is what we consider an integral part of our responsibility. This is what we expect to achieve as a company. As such, several of our digital infrastructures are completely developed in-house and are setting the stage for important competencies that will play an increasingly significant role in the future. There is no time to wait. Our customers and patients around the world are depending on us. That is what drives us every day.

At the center of all: our people

The implementation of digital processes concerns the essential core processes at Vetter. Within the scope of our wide-ranging digitalization strategy, we focus on, among other things, projects in the topic areas of production, quality, and the supply chain. The administrative sector is also facing a wide variety of digitalization projects.

Without question, digitalization is increasing. For that reason, the activities and procedures that comprise our work change as well. Every day, we address the question of how we can manage to undergo this change in a sustainable and successful way. We believe the answer is by having employees who are confident, passionate, and comfortable with applying new technologies. For more than 70 years, our staff has played a key role in helping to shape our company. Today, they represent a force of approximately 5,500 people on three continents and are, without doubt, the most important success factor in our digital journey.