Why digitalization is the key to pharma resilience

Pick up any 2025 pharma trends report, and one theme stands out: resilience. It’s no surprise. In a time of geopolitical uncertainty, supply chain and power disruptions and tougher environmental regulations, pharma companies must maintain quality service despite challenges.  

But what does it mean to be a resilient pharma company in 2025? And what tools are available that pharma companies might previously have overlooked?  

To understand what resilience means for pharma in 2025, we partnered with independent research firm Verdantix to survey senior leaders at 50 life science firms across APAC, EMEA and North America.  

We found that not only is enhancing business resilience set to become their top priority in the next three years — over reducing operational costs — but that their priorities for business resilience are also expected to change. 

The power challenge 

Business continuity emerged as the primary concern — ensuring production doesn't stop due to operational or power disruptions. Power resilience is crucial as the energy transition unfolds, with executives citing grid reliability concerns amid increased clean energy integration. 

This challenge is uniquely critical in pharmaceutical manufacturing, where production lines cannot simply shut down and restart. A brief power disruption can cause batch failures and contamination risks. With biological products worth millions per batch, maintaining precise temperatures throughout production and storage is essential. 

This is where the integration of smart power monitoring systems becomes not just beneficial, but critical for business continuity. 

Sustainability, digital twin technology 

Sustainability ranked as the second most important factor for business resilience. Many pharma companies are already advanced in sustainability initiatives — Novo Nordisk, for example, operates on 100% renewable electricity across its global production.  

The sustainability challenge extends beyond energy usage to pharmaceutical waste reduction. Companies are adopting green chemistry principles and continuous manufacturing processes.

Digital twin technology can play a crucial role here, allowing companies to optimize these processes virtually before real world implementation, minimizing waste and improving resource efficiency. 

High potency, high reliability  

Despite sustainability progress, our survey found low deployment rates of advanced digital technologies supporting resilience strategies, leaving significant untapped efficiencies that could help companies reduce their carbon footprints, particularly in production infrastructure.  

Reliable pharmaceutical production requires tightly controlled environments meeting GMP standards, with precise regulation of air quality, temperature and pressure. Proper airflow, filtration and pressure differentials help prevent contamination and ensure product consistency. For high-potency ingredients, even stricter controls are necessary.

Building automation software can monitor and control high-containment environments while supporting sustainability goals. 

Digitalization in action 

At its high-containment plant in Freiburg, for example, Pfizer introduced a cloud-based building management platform to monitor energy consumption. The plant now uses 40% less energy than traditional facilities. 

What’s particularly noteworthy about Pfizer’s implementation is how it integrates with their broader digital transformation strategy. The platform feeds data into a larger analytics ecosystem that helps optimize everything from production scheduling to maintenance planning. This holistic approach has allowed them to achieve benefits beyond just energy savings.

Similarly, at Develco Pharma, which manufactures pharmaceutical products to treat severe pain and ADHD, one of their German production plants uses a cloud-based building management platform to centrally control and optimize all systems, allowing the facility to maintain high reliability in production and achieve maximum efficiency.  

The labs are equipped with specialized solutions such as seismic sound sensors and motion detectors as well as devices recording room conditions such as pressure, temperature and humidity, guaranteeing optimal conditions, while consuming minimal resources.  

The key to resilience  

Pfizer and Develco are not alone in their adoption of smart infrastructure technologies to bolster business resilience, although many companies are not at quite an advanced stage.  

Cloud-based building and energy management systems are popular in biotech and pharma, with our survey showing that 100% of users consider these systems key to business resilience. 

However, newer technologies — digital twins, AI, edge computing, microgrid controllers and IoT sensors — have low current uptake despite their potential. 

As one respondent told us, “Cloud solutions and IoT sensors have had the biggest impact on our monitoring and visibility because they allow us to remotely track facility conditions, allowing for the proactive identification and resolution of possible problems before they cause disruptions to operations.” 

Modern control rooms are evolving into intelligent command centers, where operators can access real-time data from facility sensors. Advanced analytics can now predict equipment failures before they occur, particularly valuable for critical systems. 

Power resilience through microgrids 

While microgrid adoption in pharma remains early-stage, its potential impact on business continuity and sustainability is significant. Microgrids can integrate multiple power sources to provide reliable power during grid disruptions while optimizing usage in real-time. 

Some forward-thinking companies are already implementing sophisticated microgrid solutions that can island their critical operations from the main grid during power failures while maintaining precise power quality requirements for sensitive equipment. 

It’s clear too that power monitoring can support both resilience pillars, bolstering operational stability by giving real-time insights into energy use, spotting inefficiencies and averting any interruptions before they affect crucial activities.  

Taking the next step 

For me, the picture is positive as pharma adopts foundational digital software in general. However, for business resilience, digital uptake needs to accelerate. The next step is increasing impact through strategic integration with underutilized technologies to strengthen adaptation to disruptions while enhancing production reliability and sustainability. 

It’s not a big leap. The good news is that today’s software platforms can seamlessly integrate with emerging technologies to unlock efficiencies, strengthen sustainability and enable proactive prevention of disruptions. By taking this next step, pharma companies will be well-positioned amid the challenges we face.