Today's headline news in the PLM world is TECHNIA’s win in a battle that not only gave them an important strategic partnership but also a very large 3DEXPERIENCE implementation order in the Life Sciences segment. Engineering.com can reveal that the global PLM consultant TECHNIA—which is also Dassault Systèmes’ largest solution partner—has landed a big deal in the final round of competition with Siemens Digital Industries. Among other things, the deal involves Dassault’s 3DEXPERIENCE platform and is comprised of 13,000 users.
It is the German medical technology company B. Braun that signed the partnership with TECHNIA and Dassault. B. Braun manufactures medical devices and pharmaceutical products and supplies related services.
"It's probably one of the largest PLM projects in Europe this year, and a milestone for us," declared Jonas Gejer, CEO of TECHNIA.
Furthermore, the deal can be seen as yet another acknowledgement of TECHNIA becoming one of the leading companies when it comes to winning PLM projects from sectors outside the traditional ones such as automotive, aerospace, heavy machinery, high tech and the like.
B. Braun is one of the leaders in the medical technology sector, with close to 65,000 employees, operations in 64 countries and annual revenues in the neighborhood of $7 billion.
The more specific package that B. Braun has chosen to invest in is the life science industry solution named “License to Cure,” which is based on apps on the Dassault Systèmes 3DEXPERIENCE (3DX) platform.
According to today’s announcement, medical technology company B. Braun will implement and run its operations on Dassault Systèmes 3DEXPERIENCE platform based on the “Licensed to Cure” industry solution. For Dassault’s largest solution partner, PLM consultant and system integrator TECHNIA , this order is a milestone. TECHNIA will supply Dassault’s PLM solution 3DEXPERIENCE to more than 13,000 users in B. Braun, which makes this deal one of this year’s biggest in European PLM business.
One of the objectives of this Dassault solution is to digitally link together and create a future-driven seamlessness between PLM, ERP and CRM systems. Shown in the picture is an example of what B. Braun produces. B. Braun Medical has integrated both macro- and micro-fluidic handling into one TPN compounding system. The APEX Compounding System is designed to provide exceptional precision in delivering micro ingredients while increasing compounding speed.
B. Braun's CIO, Gerd Niehage, points out the major challenges facing the medical technology industry, which are important reasons for the Dassault and TECHNIA bet.
“These include increasing and more detailed requirements for compliance, legislation and market requirements. We believe that in this, PLM will be what enables a smooth platform to effectively manage and overcome these obstacles. We chose the partnership with Dassault and TECHNIA to leverage their life sciences knowledge to sharpen our broad product portfolio and adapt it and our management to the digitalization journey we are facing,” said Niehage.
Creates Seamless Links Between PLM, ERP and CRM
GROWING DEMANDS ON COMPLIANCE. “We believe that PLM, among other things, will enable a smooth platform to effectively manage and overcome obstacles like high and growing demands on regulatory compliance,” said Gerd Niehage, CIO of medical tech company B. Braun.
As an international company in the field of medical products, systems and services, B. Braun is a good example of how the sector is now investing heavily in stepping up the capabilities to meet the digitalization trend. The idea of this partnership is to utilize digital applications and methods to sharpen product offerings, efficiency, quality and collaboration in its supply chain.
In parallel, these efforts aim at legislation and regulations compliance.
According to the agreement between the parties, TECHNIA will supply Dassault’s 3DEXPERIENCE PLM solution to more than 13,000 users in B. Braun. One of the objectives of this solution is to digitally link together and create a future-driven seamlessness between PLM, ERP and CRM systems.
The PLM solution that they will use is Dassault's industrial packaged “License to Cure” on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.
Dassault developed this solution based on increasing regulatory scrutiny, which is forcing medical device manufacturers to focus more on quality and safety.
“A milestone for TECHNIA,” claims CEO Jonas Gejer.
According to Dassault, the “License to Cure” package provides experiences that allow companies to, “eliminate scattered processes and data and to ‘embed’ regulations compliance as an asset, optimizing quality, compliance and reducing cost and time to market.”
It is an end-to-end solution that supports most of today’s aspects of a medical device company’s quality system and regulatory compliance ISO-regulated design controls.
“In addition, in an effort to address event reporting, reduce recalls and improve patient safety, manufacturers needs flexible solutions that manage the packaging and UDI code print and all quality issues including product complaints, non-conformance reporting (NCRs), audits and CAPAs, through a single, global, online system,” explains TECHNIA’s CEO, Jonas Gejer.
TECHNIA's Own Software “Experience Packaged” is Included in the Deal
TECHNIA will complement this industrial solution with its own software and will, in collaboration with Dassault's life sciences team, contribute with implementation and roll-out services.
“Of course, it is great to be selected by B. Braun in tough competition to be in the position of global PLM partner,” says Gejer. “This actor is one of the leaders in the global healthcare business and our partnership will enable them to help increase their efficiency, innovation capacity and compliance with existing and new regulations worldwide.”
He also points out that, “License to Cure for Medical Device ensures a single source of information for design and a fully transparent and fully-documented change process for both the product and the process that allows medical device manufacturers to be proactive rather than reactive to increasing demands.”
Other modules are, for example, when it comes to high quality and 100 percent regulatory compliance assured via a virtual Design History File (DHF) and up-to-date Device Master Record (DMR) that is directly linked to post-market quality assurance business processes, such as Complaints, Non-Conformance Reports (NCR) and Corrective and Preventative Actions (CAPA).
MORE R&D SPENDING THAN AUTOMOTIVE AND AEROSPACE COMBINED. Developing new drugs and handling medical devices is not only difficult from a regulatory and competitive perspective—the R&D side of the business is really challenging. The industry spends more on R&D than the aerospace and automotive industries combined. For example, the success rate of new drug development from its initial concept phase is less than one percent. For Dassault, this is hardly surprising, as the company has made significant investments into this space.
Initially, the largest move in this direction was the acquisition of Accelrys at the end of 2014 for $750 million. This move was later followed by other bets, including this year’s big $5.8 billion Medidata acquisition. According to Dassault, these solutions enable medical, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to work in environments that make it possible to streamline both the scientific and operational processes for developing new drugs and living up to high demands on regulatory compliance.
The solutions allow for everything from biological and chemical modeling and simulation, open collaborative discovery and research, unified laboratory management to efficient production processes and integrated quality and regulatory management.
Eliminates Siloed Processes and Data
On Dassault's side, Claire Biot, VP of the company's Life Sciences Industry division, notes that License to Cure solutions are tailor-made to help companies eliminate siloed processes and data, and "embed regulations to create an asset that optimizes quality and compliance.”
“On the bottom line,” says Biot, it is about being able to do this during optimized innovative processes with medical devices and smart services that not only increase the benefit for patients and doctors, but also reduce costs.
She further adds that, "TECHNIA is one of our global largest life sciences system integrators and we will work in close collaboration to deliver business transformation to B. Braun."
My Take on the Deal: A Milestone for TECHNIA, A Great Move for the Med Tech Industry
For TECHNIA, the B. Braun deal comes as a confirmation that the investment they have made in life sciences has been the right move. It is undoubtedly a “feather in the cap” for CEO Jonas Gejer, and for TECHNIA’s Life Science director, Annelie Uvhagen.
It is also clear that both Dassault and TECHNIA perceived the potential of the life sciences sector, as well as the need for digitizing. In general, this sector has in some aspects lagged behind industries such as automotive, high-tech and the like in terms of broader product innovation platforms with modern digital capabilities. Much is still symbolically done on paper, which can result in processes that make the development work in the R&D and marketing areas move slower and more sluggishly than it potentially could.
A GROWING PORTFOLIO OF HEALTHCARE PRODUCTS AND SERVICES. B. Braun is best known as a pioneer in sterile packaging. The company's goal, says CIO Gerd Niehage, is "to deliver the right instrument, at the right time, under sterile conditions for easy use, at low operating costs and with a reliable packaging system.” But over time, the B. Braun group has grown to become one of the world's leading suppliers and manufacturers of healthcare solutions. In total, the company's growing portfolio of healthcare solutions comprises a product range of 5,000 different products, of which 95 percent is manufactured by the company.
B. Braun is also a system provider that offers additional services and consulting services. We develop the best solution for patients in close cooperation with the customer. This, in turn, makes an important contribution to medical progress. The picture is from B. Braun company Aesculap, which is the world's largest manufacturer of surgical instruments and sterilization container systems. The company is committed to providing high-quality, innovative products and services to all surgical disciplines, including neurosurgery, microsurgery, ENT, plastic and reconstructive, thoracic, microvascular, cardiovascular, orthopedic, laparoscopic and general surgeries and central processing.
In this context, it is also clear that Dassault played a proactive role, reflected by the recent acquisition of Medidata, which contains solutions and capabilities that will also play a role in the B. Braun deal once the 3DEXPERIENCE integration has advanced a bit further.
But why is the Medidata purchase so important in this context? The answer mirrors some general weaker characteristics of the med tech industry.
For example, clinical trials are bottlenecks in this industry. Generally speaking, of the three major developers of PLM platforms–Dassault, Siemens and PTC–above all, Dassault Systèmes has addressed the PLM support for this type of business, while Siemens is traditionally strong on the technology side when it comes to different types of advanced medical machine equipment.
"But Dassault has the best set of solutions in the clinical medical field," Gartner's PLM analyst Marc Halpern claimed as he and I discussed the topic. Not least because the company's BIOVIA product plays an important role. The problem has really only been to get the whole of what can be delivered on the solution page onto a single unified platform, says Halpern.
This is the background to Dassault's latest acquisition in this field, Medidata Solutions. Medidata is the market leader in clinical trial solutions in the cloud and is used by 1,300 customers worldwide to develop medical innovations and manage clinical operating results.
The purchase was not cheap, which shows that Bernard Charlés was prepared to open Dassault’s wallet wide to get a single unified platform solution together. But even if the $5.8 billion he invested is a lot of money, it appears to be a wise and forward-looking bet.
Today’s announcement from Dassault and TECHNIA represents a quick “installment.”
My conclusion is that there’s more to come in this field. The clinical area in the medicine business is generally low-digitized and as a result you can expect massive investments from the world's players—investments that will all involve breaking clinical trials bottlenecks and also digitizing operations generally, for example in the marketing side.