Personalised medicine and the transformation of production processes

What is personalised medicine?

Personalised medicine is an innovative approach to healthcare that tailors treatments to the individual genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors of a patient. While conventional treatments often follow a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, personalised medicine enables tailor-made therapies with greater precision, fewer side effects and improved treatment outcomes.

One example of this is gene-based cancer therapies, in which the genetic mutations of a tumour are analysed to develop a precisely tailored treatment. Tailor-made drugs can also be used for rare diseases or autoimmune disorders.

Why is personalised medicine changing production?

The transition from standardised mass production to individualised treatment methods poses major challenges for the pharmaceutical industry.

Away from mass production: Traditional pharmaceutical companies manufacture drugs in large batches. However, personalised medicine requires smaller, specific production quantities that can be flexibly adapted.

Individualisation as a challenge: Medicines and therapies are increasingly being tailored to small groups of patients or even to individuals. This means that production processes must be made faster, more agile and more efficient.

What new technologies are emerging in production as a result?

To keep pace with this development, modern technologies are being used to enable flexible and efficient production:

• 3D printing of medicines: This technology allows individually dosed medicines to be produced in a very short time. Medicines can be printed directly in pharmacies or hospitals and adapted to the specific needs of patients. This enables a high degree of flexibility and reduces inventory levels.
• Automated production and AI-supported manufacturing: Artificial intelligence helps to optimise production processes by analysing large amounts of data and adjusting the composition of individual drugs in real time. Automated production lines can manufacture different drugs with little manual effort.
• Biotechnological processes: Cell and gene therapies require new biotechnological manufacturing processes to efficiently produce patient-specific therapies in small quantities. These include personalised vaccines, tailor-made antibody therapies and regenerative medicine approaches.
• Lab-on-a-chip technology: The miniaturisation of laboratory processes allows analyses and diagnoses to be carried out directly at the point of care. This facilitates the production of personalised medicines and enables rapid adaptation of treatment plans.

What challenges does this pose for production?

The switch to individualised manufacturing brings with it a number of challenges:

• Regulatory requirements: The manufacture of customized drugs requires new approval procedures and strict quality controls. Since personalized medicine often uses novel technologies and processes, regulatory frameworks must be adapted.
• Costs and scalability: Flexible production of small quantities is more expensive than conventional mass production. Investment in new technologies, automated systems and specialised personnel increases production costs. Companies must therefore develop innovative business models to make this challenge economically viable.
• Logistics and supply chains: Personalised medicines often have to be manufactured and distributed within very short timeframes. This requires a highly optimised supply chain with fast transport routes and flexible distribution networks. It must also be ensured that medicines are stored and transported under optimal conditions, especially in the case of temperature-sensitive biopharmaceuticals.
• Data protection and ethical issues: Since personalised medicine is based on the analysis of individual patient data, high data protection standards must be guaranteed. At the same time, ethical questions arise regarding access to such therapies and the use of genetic information.
• Interdisciplinary cooperation: The production of personalised medicines requires close cooperation between pharmaceutical companies, IT specialists, biotechnologists and healthcare providers. Integrating different disciplines and technologies is a complex task that must be well coordinated.

What does the future hold for production in personalised medicine?

Personalised medicine will bring about lasting change in pharmaceutical production. In the future, we could see:

• Decentralised production sites, for example in hospitals or pharmacies, where medicines are manufactured directly on site. This would not only reduce waiting times for patients, but also minimise transport and storage costs.
• AI-supported diagnoses and therapy recommendations could further optimise production processes. By analysing large amounts of data, AI can identify individual treatment patterns and thus enable more precise manufacturing of drugs.
• Modular production systems could facilitate the switch between different types of drugs and therapies. Instead of large, centralised factories, smaller, flexible production modules could be created that can respond individually and quickly to different requirements.
• Advanced personalised formulations using new technologies such as nanomedicine or CRISPR technology will further increase the effectiveness and tolerability of therapies.
• Improved patient involvement through digital platforms that enable patients to share their data securely with doctors and pharmaceutical companies in order to receive tailored treatments.

In the long term, the entire pharmaceutical production model could evolve away from traditional, large-scale mass production towards patient-centric, flexible and technology-enabled production.

What new opportunities and responsibilities does this create?

Personalised medicine offers great opportunities for more efficient, individualised healthcare. However, it also requires production processes to be adapted to ensure flexibility, cost-effectiveness and regulatory certainty.

Pharmaceutical companies, science and politics are faced with the task of setting the course for the innovative and responsible development of this new era of medicine.

How adesso supports the transformation to personalised medicine

The transformation to personalised medicine presents healthcare organisations with profound structural and technological challenges – from adapting regulatory processes to implementing individualised production models. We accompany you on this journey with tailor-made IT solutions and in-depth industry knowledge. As a digitalisation partner, we combine technological expertise and process knowledge to successfully implement complex innovations such as AI-supported diagnostics, automated manufacturing and decentralised production sites.

We focus specifically on modular platform solutions, interoperability and data integration – key building blocks for the efficient implementation of personalised therapies. With their expertise in areas such as cloud computing, AI and regulatory IT compliance, our experts create the technological foundation for agile and secure production processes. When developing digital patient portals, intelligent supply chains or using lab-on-a-chip technologies, customers also benefit from an interdisciplinary team that is equally fluent in the language of healthcare and modern IT.

Through a collaborative consulting approach and practical solutions, we enable you to unlock the full potential of personalised medicine – efficiently, scalably and future-proof.