An open source benchmark simulator for sustainable and flexible pharmaceutical manufacturing

Stimulated by Pharma 4.0, pharmaceutical industry is undergoing a transition from batch to continuous manufacturing (CM). There are manifold of benefits of continuous tablets production such as: increased product quality; improved efficiency; reduced production costs. Even more, CM could accelerate the product development resulting in faster delivery of medicine to patients, and this without affecting product quality. To exploit the advantages of CM, the mainly separated process units need to be integrated to form end-to-end systems from raw material to final product. Such integration requires a deep understanding and a holistic approach toward process development and optimization. In this paper, a feasibility study of using model predictive control for the multi-variable process of tablet production is presented. The simulations have been performed on a novel and unique simulation environment where the main unit processes involved in the manufacturing of tablets are implemented. Preliminary results indicate that the proposed methodology is feasible and implementable on the benchmark simulation.