Irish Consortium led by ServBlock and IMR win EU funding

Blockchain and pharmaceutical compliance company ServBlock receives funding alongside Irish Manufacturing Research (IMR) to build a trusted data exchange system for outsourced pharmaceutical manufacturing. Wicklow based ServBlock leads a consortium that includes NEXA | EAM (Cork), Ingeniero Solutions (Dublin) Unison Process Solutions (Limerick) and Plant Quest (Waterford) as a test case for trusted data transfer in pharma supply chains.  

The project is  supported by the EU’s i4Trust program, which provides funding for innovative research and development projects. The funding will enable the consortium to bring together experts from various fields, including data science, manufacturing, and engineering. 

Welcoming the funding announcement, Adrian Hovenden, IMR’s Industrial Solutions Architect said: “Irish Manufacturing Research is delighted to have worked with IMR Member, ServBlock, to successfully secure the i4Trust funding for MANU SPACE. Collaborating with IMR members to create impactful solutions for the Irish manufacturing industry such as this Data Space, is key to ensuring the continued growth and development of the sector. IMR are excited to participate in this consortium and facilitate improvements in patient outcomes through improvements to the pharmaceutical manufacturing and supply chain.” 

In pharmaceutical manufacturing 20% of executives in management cite disparate systems and data sources among key challenges in addressing top manufacturing objectives for life sciences companies. A dataspace is a way of bringing together data from different sources and making it accessible and usable for a variety of purposes, such as research, analysis, or decision-making.  

Data spaces can be used in a variety of contexts, such as in business, science, or government. The manufacturing data space will bring together data from different factories, production lines, and supply chains, in order to gain insights into the efficiency and competitiveness of the manufacturing process. 

In the pharmaceutical industry 60% of all manufacturing is outsourced, companies outsource business activities to external partners for a variety of reasons – cost, flexibility, time to market, and core competence. This outsourcing leads to an increased risk of non-compliance to Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) procedures which in turn could be is a risk to the brand reputation of the company. By utilising the Manufacturing data space pharmaceutical companies can ensure contract manufacturers adhere to the same integrity, compliance, and quality operations as in-house manufacturing. 

John Ward, CEO and founder of ServBlock, said: – We are excited to be a part of this important project and look forward to working with our partners to bring the manufacturing data space to life. This opportunity will allow ServBlock to accelerate growth while being at the forefront of the Data Space movement. 

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About Irish Manufacturing Research 

Irish Manufacturing Research (IMR) is a leading Research and Technology Organisation providing a portfolio of research, training, and consultancy services to Industry across the following four thematic pillars: Digitisation, Sustainable manufacturing, Design for Manufacturing and Robotics and Automation. IMR works with leading global and indigenous brands to demystify, and derisk new and emerging technologies and to deliver high impact collaborative research and services to enable advanced manufacturing for a broad range of clients across Ireland’s manufacturing network 

To find out more about membership, visit the IMR website: Membership – Irish Manufacturing Research (imr.ie/pages/membership/). 

About ServBlock 

Founded in 2021 Servblock is an Irish based blockchain company. Servblock’s patent pending blockchain compliance management tool ensures pharmaceutical and healthcare companies achieve quality compliance through trusted data exchange. Bringing together all parties onto a single, secure data-sharing and collaboration platform creating value for the entire Ecosystem.