2025 - AVEVA World - San Francisco - Manufacturing (Life Sciences, CPG, Discrete)
Vir Biotechnology & Cognizant: RAPID Lab & Timeseries Data - CONNECT data services implementation
Vir Biotechnology is a mid-cap biotechnology company applying its platforms towards treatments and cures for infectious diseases, immunologic conditions, and oncology therapeutics. Current high-resolution cell culture bioreactor data is not systematically retrievable limiting the application of advanced analytics and visualization including existing ML/AI tools designed to accelerate commercialization through process optimization. Ensuring these process data are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) are critical to enabling machine learning and other advanced analytical approaches. Users spend an estimated 30% of their project time finding, cleaning, formatting, and duplicating data for every study performed. Automatic acquisition and data view sharing is expected to halve the time spent on analysis and reporting while reducing the chance of errors during data duplication for reporting purposes. Vir Biotechnology's strategy for cloud-first employee workplace experience and track-record of successful distributed manufacturing relies on an extensive R&D and IT partnership to maximize productivity of limited resources. Vir Biotechnology established a partnership with Cognizant to implement a cloud-first data historian strategy using AVEVA's SaaS offering, CONNECT Data Services (CDS). AVEVA Adapter for OPC UA was configured in a failover setup to ingress process development data into CDS. Data infrastructure without ever having an operating on-premises PI Server was implemented. CDS serves as an essential system-of-record for online process data. As a result of the project, Vir Biotechnology scientists have moved from using remote desktop software for monitoring multiple bioreactors and trending analysis of different reactors individually and performing analytical dashboarding manually in Excel and Tableau, and/or Sharepoint dashboards. In the future, Vir Biotechnology aims to leverage its capacity for REST API data egress externally with CDMO and CRO strategic partners using PowerBI Connector and GraphQL.
Industry
Life Sciences
Company
Cognizant Technology Solutions
Speaker
Balu Karthikeyan
Balu Karthikeyan, PhD, is a seasoned techno-functional expert with over 18 years of experience in data infrastructure and operational intelligence. He specializes in AVEVA/OSIsoft PI System data infrastructure, enabling operational and business intelligence integration. Balu has a proven track record in project and program management, delivering commercial software and solutions across various industries, including DERs, automotive, power & utilities, renewable energy, oil & gas, and pharmaceuticals. He has led high-impact projects, such as integrating data from disparate utility systems, saving significant operational costs, and developing cloud platforms for electric vehicles and energy storage assets. Balu is skilled in AI, ML, IoT, and cloud computing, with expertise in Microsoft Azure, GCP, AWS, and various data integration protocols. He holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Iowa State University. Balu thrives in leading conversations at a C-suite level.
Company
Vir Biotechnology
Speaker
Scott Schaecher
As Director of R&D IT at Vir Biotechnology, I am a passionate business leader with more than 17 years industry experience in life sciences research and development, R&D IT, data science and analytics strategy, IT leadership, AI for life sciences, cloud systems implementation, process development, and molecular biology. I am dedicated to advancing biotechnology through use of digital technologies and data science to drive rapid advancements to improve human health and the planet we live on.
Company
Vir Biotechnology
Speaker
Rachel Korwin-Miller
Rachel is an accomplished R&D IT Manager at Vir Biotechnology with over 12 years of diversified experience in the biotechnology and information technology sectors. Her expertise spans across project and data management, system administration, business analysis, and microbiology. In her current role, Rachel has been instrumental in advancing the company's technological capabilities over the past three years. She has successfully spearheaded the development and implementation of state-of-the-art solutions using platforms like Benchling to significantly enhance data management, optimize workflows, and achieve comprehensive end-to-end automation. She is recently pivoting to support the AVEVA PI integrations into the Benchling environment. Rachel's multifaceted skill set and dedication to innovation continue to drive the company's success in the competitive biotechnology landscape.
Session Code
SESS-69
