Leading global professional services company, Cognizant, and the Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Pharmaceutical Engineering and Manufacturing (CESPE) have today announced a partnership which will accelerate the realization of innovative, sustainable, and agile developments in the pharmaceutical sector, at large scales.

The partnership will focus on knowledge sharing and prototyping ground-breaking ideas across various industry related topics, such as industry 4.0 and maximizing the value of Digital Twins in R&D and manufacturing by hybrid modelling, with use of the latest advanced analytical methods. Cognizant will also become a CESPE Industrial Member, joining the growing community where academic researchers and industrial partners are connected and where they can exchange information on sustainable pharmaceutical engineering and manufacturing at multiple levels. 

Both Cognizant and CESPE's main goal is to reinvent the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industry: Cognizant as a technology partner and CESPE as complementary research center. CESPE is a multidisciplinary innovation accelerator hosted at Ghent University focusing on the sustainable development, design and optimization of both drug substance and drug product production platforms. Ghent University (UGent) is a top 100 university and one of the largest Belgian universities in the heart of Europe. It is an active partner in national and international educational, scientific, and industrial cooperation. CESPE’s ambition is to become the reference center in end-to-end (bio)pharmaceutical manufacturing in Europe. It accelerates the development of emerging production technologies to manufacture the medicines of the future in a sustainable, agile way. Cognizant implements, integrates, operationalizes, and scales such innovations within the life sciences industry, while contributing to similar ground-breaking innovative ideas with resourceful individuals working for Cognizant with various skills and rich domain knowledge. Conversely, CESPE can apply Cognizant's patented technological solutions in examining and prototyping their own research.

Gregory Verlinden, Associate Vice President of Analytics & AI at Cognizant, says: "We at Cognizant are incredibly excited to partner with a leading institute like CESPE. Together, we are going to make significant strides in the development of technologies like digital twins in the pharmaceutical industry. This will make companies, and the overall industry, much more flexible and effective, thus stimulating innovation. We are proud to be doing our part to support the significant life sciences industry in Belgium, which has huge impact both locally and beyond."

Bram Bekaert, Operational Manager at CESPE, adds: "We are actively looking for partnerships that endorse our core values. Cognizant's complementary nature is exactly what we are looking for: a balanced collaboration with a reciprocal knowledge exchange. Our collaboration starts with the digital twin but can certainly expand later."

On July 5, CESPE and Cognizant are organizing an event on scalable digital twins to bring more flexibility, efficiency, and speed to the pharmaceutical industry. The event will take place from 13:00 to 18:00 at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Ghent University. At this event, you will hear from great minds in both academia and the life sciences industry about the latest trends and best practices in Digital Twin technology. Click for information about the collaboration and register for the event.