For years, one of the big ambitions in pharmaceutical manufacturing has been to collect more data.

Connect the equipment. Digitise the records. Get information out of the process. Build the infrastructure.

From the conversations we're having for ManuPharma 2027, it feels as though the question is changing.

Manufacturers increasingly have the data. Now what do they do with it?

One manufacturing leader we spoke to is working on exactly this problem. Their internal team is focused on collecting data from OT systems, while external partners are helping develop tools to make better use of that information.

The applications they're interested in aren't theoretical: predictive maintenance, root-cause analysis and better manufacturing decisions.

It sounds obvious, but it's an important evolution in how we talk about digitalisation.

Having a lot of data doesn't necessarily make a factory digital. Having a dashboard doesn't necessarily make a process better.

The useful question is what changed because you had the information. Did you prevent a failure? Did you find the cause of a deviation faster? Did you reduce downtime? Did an operator make a better decision? Did you remove a manual check?

Those are much harder questions, but they're probably better measures of digital maturity.

We'd like to see the conversation move from 'look at the data we can collect' to 'look at the problem we solved with it.' That shift from digital capability to measurable value will be a key part of the ManuPharma conversation.

Register for ManuPharma 2027 here.