Can data play a role big enough to save a pharmaceutical manufacturing company $7.5 milllion annually ?

A pharma company had hit a roadblock when they were unable to figure out the variation in the yield from 45 to 90% even though the same processes were used to manufacture different batches of the same substance. This meant the efficacy of the drug could largely vary and also become liable for regulatory issues in terms of quality.

What made the issue even more challenging was the data that being collected was not structure.To begin with, the data collection was streamlined subsequent to which the team was able to manufacture the processes into different clusters based on the activity. After repeated modelling,validating the model and with the use of Big Data, the team was able to identify 12 parameters that were crucial and played a role in the process interdependencies. 

Now that the correlation was established all that remained was to modify these processes and the company was able to increase the production thereby saving $7.5 million annually