Biopharmaceuticals are drugs produced in a multi-stage biomanufacturing process. The use of living cells introduces multiple operational uncertainties into the system. Today, the manufacturing stages are often treated as independent entities operated with fixed process control strategies, neglecting the trade-off these decisions create across stages. Further, process monitoring data routinely collected to prove regulatory compliance of the process, are not used for operational decision-making. We formulate the multistage biomanufacturing process as an MDP and determine an integrated policy. We show the applicability of the policy for a typical biomanufacturing process, focussing on the implementation of the operations policy in practice.     «

Biopharmaceuticals are drugs produced in a multi-stage biomanufacturing process. The use of living cells introduces multiple operational uncertainties into the system. Today, the manufacturing stages are often treated as independent entities operated with fixed process control strategies, neglecting the trade-off these decisions create across stages. Further, process monitoring data routinely collected to prove regulatory compliance of the process, are not used for operational decision-making. W...     »