Pertinence Partners with Aegis Analytical to Reduce Process Variability and Increase Productivity in Life Science Manufacturing Processes

Pertinence a provider of software solutions focused on optimizing industrial processes and complex systems today announced a new partnership with Aegis Analytical Corporation, a provider of enterprise software and expertise for pharmaceutical and biotechnology manufacturers to access their data and perform investigational analysis. The alliance offers Pertinence and Aegis customers a combined software system that gives greater control of process variability, product uniformity and quality, enabling deeper process understanding and improved compliance with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) good manufacturing practices (GMPs).

Pertinence's Rule Maker software system creates Best Operational Practices by means of a sophisticated rule induction technology which differentiates the various parameters that have an impact on product quality and yield. Based on the data from prior runs and knowing the desired outcomes to be achieved, Pertinence Rule Maker produces simple rules for how each controllable process parameter should be operated so that the best manufacturing outcomes can be obtained, ultimately helping manufacturers understand and determine best operational practices. Pertinence Rule Maker also allows 'what if' analysis so that the best implementation of its rules can be pre-determined under various operating constraints. Rules identified by Pertinence Rule Maker can be immediately applied to operations to build the company's process understanding and expertise.

Aegis' Discoverant, an enterprise-class manufacturing software system, provides easy real time access to data stored in multiple sources and quickly transforms it into useable intelligence through investigational analysis. Using Discoverant, manufacturers can better understand and control the causes of process variability in full-scale manufacturing operations. The software system's combination of real time data access, sophisticated visual analysis technologies and a user-centric design, allows process decision-makers to quickly identify the root causes of process variability. Its patented data modeling technology makes data readily available from multiple disparate systems, including LIMS (Lab Info Management Systems), SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition), ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), etc., along with data from paper records.

The powerful new combination of Pertinence Rule Maker and Aegis Discoverant enables manufacturers to quickly access all the necessary data and identify the interactions of critical process parameters and practices that produce the desired process outcomes. Discoverant's Nexus real time data connectivity platform creates a fast, single point of interactive access to all the data from multiple electronic databases and from paper records, which can then be analyzed within Discoverant and/or passed to Pertinence Rule Maker for rule induction, providing deeper process understanding and the identification of rules to better control the manufacturing process. Users can also extract and quantify on screen specific features from continuous data (strip charts), passing these quantified features to Pertinence Rule Maker for rule induction in combination with other process development and manufacturing data. Every user on the system has real-time access to all the data from multiple databases and paper records available to them on their desktop integrated with a powerful investigational analysis and rules induction environment.

"The combination of Pertinence Rule Maker and Aegis Discoverant is designed to enable life science manufacturers and process developers to leverage existing data and expertise so that they can rapidly enhance their process understanding and achieve their challenging business goals in manufacturing," said Frederic Halley, vice president of marketing, Pertinence. "Pairing Pertinence Rule Maker's rules induction engine with Discoverant's data access, paper record data capture and feature extraction capabilities is one more way we are helping our customers to significantly improve their manufacturing processes."

"Together, Aegis Discoverant and Pertinence Rule Maker provide best-in-class software technology and user centric interface design to pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturers for reducing process variability and improving control," said Justin Neway, Ph.D., executive vice president and chief science officer, Aegis Analytical Corporation. "Now life science manufacturers can achieve deeper process understanding much more easily, to monitor and control their processes more effectively. This can dramatically improve process outcomes and quality compliance."