Sartorius Stedim Biotech and the Siemens technology group have agreed on a long-term cooperation arrangement in the area of automation.
Under the terms of the agreement, Sartorius will preferably use Siemens automation technologies—including industrial PCs, the S7-1500 software controller, the TIA Portal, and the SCADA system Simatic WinCC. These hardware and software components will be employed in many Sartorius products and solutions for the development and manufacture of biopharmaceuticals, including vaccines and mAbs.
Sartorius has already begun using established Siemens automation solutions for process control in its large-scale bioreactor and filtration systems. To standardize its own product portfolio even further, Sartorius has decided to introduce a new, configurable automation system for its range of systems. These will be successively equipped with Siemens automated solutions in the coming months and can thus be integrated into process control systems, such as Simatic PCS 7 and Simatic Batch. Essentially, such Sartorius products are single-use bioreactors of the BIOSTAT® STR series, various filtration systems, and the FlexAct® system. The latter is a flexible module that is used to control many different process steps within biopharmaceutical production.
“By introducing this new automation platform and further standardizing our products, we are making it easy for our customers to integrate their systems into higher-level automation solutions, such as SCADA, MES or ERP,” explained Dr. Oscar-Werner Reif, chief technology officer at Sartorius. “At the same time, we are enabling them to achieve easier scalability of processes ranging from lab scale to commercial-scale production. We have found an ideal partner in Siemens as one of the leading companies in automation.”
Eckard Eberle, CEO of the Siemens Process Automation business unit, commented: “We are happy to support Sartorius Stedim Biotech with our unique and cohesive portfolio consisting of hardware, software and service throughout the entire system life cycle. Based on our cooperation, users in the biopharmaceutical industry stand to benefit from higher efficiency, quality and flexibility, as well as faster time to market.”
As we speak, Siemens and Sartorius are jointly presenting the FlexAct module at the ACHEMA trade show (June 11–15 in Frankfurt, Germany). Visitors are cordially invited to obtain first-hand information at the Siemens AG booth in Hall 11/C3. A presentation on this product will be held in German today, June 12, at 1:30 p.m., and in English on June 13 at 1:00 p.m. and on June 14 at 2:00 p.m.
