Matthias Maaz from Honeywell spotlight on improved processes through Pharma 4.0 and IoT

How has your experience been at this coveted Pharma Manufacturing & Automation Convention?

We are mighty impressed with this event here in Hyderabad. It is an absolute honor to be given the opportunity to speak about Honeywell and our drive towards improving the Pharmaceutical industry processes by applying Pharma 4.0 and IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things). The feedback we have received from our customers has been great here as they try to understand what Honeywell does and why it has been for so long a hidden secret that we are a significant player in the Life Sciences industry.

What is your perspective on digitization of the Pharmaceutical arena and how do you think it is changing the today & tomorrow of the industry?

The future is here already. As it happens even today that some companies are a bit reluctant and approach the digitization landscape in smaller pieces and in executable steps they think they are in control of. So, you can find many customers having a significant variety of different approaches. Undoubtedly, people, in general, want this technology as they see meaningful benefits associated with it, the chunks they execute vary.

The face of technology is changing by the day. So what we implement today sometimes becomes obsolete tomorrow. How do you think that your products, services and digitization methods will impact maintaining sustainability in this dynamic industry?

First of all, Honeywell is renowned for technology that offers a certain amount of leverage to a customer. The most noteworthy part is that we can migrate our platform technology from one generation to the other; hence in a way sustainability for us has always been a major topic. In fact, we’re the only company left which can integrate older technology into the latest one. This trait is a must-have in Honeywell and we will continue doing so. Due to this, we provide our customers with a technology platform they can always maintain. The modern technology when it comes to IIoT, AI, and data lake technology is cloud-based in general, so there is no limiting factor anymore from an IT perspective to leap from one generation to the other. Efforts at Honeywell have always been to continuously strive for the sustainability model and we have made significant inroads in it.

As you rightly said, today most of the digital world due to IoT is standing on the cloud. Which vertical within the periphery of pharmaceuticals will get affected the most by IoT?

From a value chain in Pharma, IoT has touch-points in Clinical Trials and has given a considerable advantage in the area of making the API, chemical synthesis or bio-pharmaceutical and also has had a significant impact on secondary and formulation. The modern technology is all about bringing skits and super skits together and we see that the benefit of integrating those by using the new modern technology is much easier. Honeywell can provide completely different transparency and visibility to its customers’ operations by applying technology in data transparency, data integrity, data lake technology, AI, and machine learning.

Now as everything is revolving around data, you know that the first question which comes to mind is how secure is it? What is your take on that and how is 4.0 going to make a difference there?

Being in a regulated and compliance-pro industry, the aspect of data security is very important. You cannot just collect data for the sake of it. One has to make sure from day 1 that every data collected is regulatory compliant. The connector technology which we provide at Honeywell as well through our partners enables that the data collected is per se compliant. That is the starting point otherwise everything else like data lake, AI, etc. can be thrown away because one cannot use the data.

As far as the benefits of 4.0 go, they are immense as our customers realize that their ever overarching scheme speed is now going to make an impact. This technology when applied helps us know how a certain parameter relates to another parameter and also business analytics and adapting to requirements becomes easier. The correlation can be run quickly and the impact on speed is going to be dramatic.

Your views on the future of Pharma in India and where do you think the market is heading?

Before coming to this conference I had the opportunity to interact with a lot of top executives of the Indian market and it was crystal clear to me that for this country the sky is the limit. The industry is very dynamic but what strikes me the most is that the smaller, mid-size players are very aggressive here, you can see them coming up with new molecules now and then, look at the work happening in biosimilars for that matter; it’s huge. Come to think of it, look at the conference here, I feel old, to be honest. You can feel the young talent in this country working towards a much brighter future and making a difference to the market here. India is growing fast to make more than a substantial contribution to the Pharmaceutical market globally.

As developed economies continue to constrain Healthcare & Pharma funding, companies from the developing world have started to focus more on digitizing their processes. How does Honeywell place itself in this landscape?

The industry challenge that is witnessed across the regions can be tackled with our technology which is an integral part of providing a solution portfolio. For e.g. just pick a personalized medicine gene and cell therapy, we intend to be a partner of choice as we can downscale the batch of one and be the provider who can enable that in an automated fashion. The life sciences industry because of the innovation and R & D involved will never stop. There will always be a new molecule, an innovation cropping up somewhere and Honeywell intends to enable its partners to bring that to the market. So in all fairness when the industry grows, we being the industry partners grow as well. That’s the scale on which Honeywell operates its business.

A takeaway that you would like to share?

The expectations are huge and we just want to make sure that we had a great conference here. It has provided a global leader such as Honeywell, a different perspective about the dynamics of this market. The projects this country is working on are huge and coming up in no time. I and my team look forward to participating in India significantly.