European News

ServBlock, an Irish start-up, and Irish Manufacturing Research (IMR), have been given EU funding to build a data exchange system for outsourced pharmaceutical manufacturing.

ServBlock is a company that uses blockchain-based auditing and compliance to help pharma manufacturers guarantee quality across their supply chain. It aims to automate pharmaceutical compliance to make it more secure, timely and cost-efficient with the use of blockchain technology.

It is also leading an Irish consortium, which is being used as a test case for trusted data transfer in pharma supply chains, and has members such as Cork ’s Nexa Enterprise Asset Management, Dublin’s Ingeniero Solutions, Limerick ’s Union Process Solutions and Waterford’s Plant Quest.

A data space brings together multiple channels of data to make it more easily accessible for various reasons and this consortium data space will work to gain insight into the efficiency and competitiveness of the pharma manufacturing process. This EU funding will help bring in more experts to help further develop the data space, with experts coming from various fields including data science, manufacturing and engineering.

ServBlock was given the funding alongside IMR, a research and technology organisation, which researches emerging technologies for advanced manufacturing.

“IMR are excited to participate in this consortium and facilitate improvements in patient outcomes through improvements to pharmaceutical manufacturing and supply chain,” commented Adrian Hovenden, IMR industrial solutions architect. He also stated that collaboration to create impactful results is key to “ensuring the continued growth and development” in the Irish manufacturing sector.