The application of an automated plant-wide control strategy for a continuous pharmaceutical pilot plant

Continuous manufacturing has the potential to provide substantial improvements to the manufacturing of pharmaceutical products compared to traditional batch-wise manufacturing. A key challenge is the development of effective control strategies for this new type of process. This contribution presents the experimental application of an automated plant-wide control strategy for a continuous pharmaceutical pilot plant that produces a pharmaceutical product from start to finish in a continuous fashion. The performance of the automated control loops demonstrate the maintenance of the critical material attributes close to their desired setpoints for a sustained period of operation.