Continua at INTERPHEX 2025

Digital Twins and Cloud-Connected Bioreactors:
Transforming Biomanufacturing Across the Lifecycle

Join Paul Brodbeck, Chief Technologist at Continua, & Other Panelists
Wednesday, April 2 at 11:30 AM | Stage 1 at the Javits Center in NYC

The process and pharma industries are facing unprecedented challenges due to climate change as well as the economic and political situation. In the face of energy shortages, rising prices, shorter time-to-market, and increasing competitive pressure, speed, flexibility, and maximum efficiency are more important than ever. These goals can only be achieved through the seamless application of Digital Twins over the complete lifecycle of a plant.

In this session, we present a full-life-cycle approach for the comprehensive engineering and operation of batch production plants, utilizing Digital Twins in all phases (from concept over basic and detailed engineering through to commissioning, qualification, and operation) to enable highly accurate predictions of all production processes. These Digital Twins can precisely predict the impacts of planning and engineering decisions and reveal potential challenges well before commissioning, thereby improving the quality, robustness, and profitability of the plant.

A Digital Twin is created already during the concept phase and is systematically refined in the following phases. The benefits are manifold: in the early phases, for example, process alternatives can be quantitatively compared, capacities estimated, or equipment sizes determined; in later phases, more detailed processes are developed, subsystems for cleaning, utilities, buffers, or resources are designed, process robustness under uncertainties is ensured, optimal operating methods are identified, and automation as well as efficient production planning are developed.

After commissioning, the digital twin delivers its greatest benefit: our new, world-first solution INOSIM Foresight for predictive operations support provides highly accurate predictions even for the most complex plants and thus accurate online operations support to plant personnel – whether through real-time planning of production, personnel, and resources, forecasting and “mitigating” delays and disruptions, optimal maintenance planning, or beyond. The new solution was developed in close collaboration with leading companies from the pharma and chemical domains, including CSL Behring, Bayer, and BASF.

In our presentation, we will illustrate the concepts and benefits of the new integrated methodology for comprehensive engineering and operation using practical examples from various areas along the entire lifecycle.