Merck Animal Health Uses Operations Research Methods to Transform Biomanufacturing Productivity for Lifesaving Medicines

Merck Animal Health offers veterinarians, farmers, pet owners and governments one of the widest ranges of veterinary pharmaceuticals, vaccines and health management solutions. After four years of collaboration where vision met opportunity, a portfolio of optimization and decision support applications were implemented that substantially improved biomanufacturing effectiveness. Biomanufacturing uses living organisms (i.e., viruses and bacteria) to grow active ingredients in vaccines and therapeutics. This high-tech manufacturing process generates challenges not found in many other industries. Additionally, the high cost of equipment and labor-intensive nature of operations precluded the ability to just add capacity. Operations research was critical to meet these challenges. The implementation of the developed models had a significant impact by generating $200 million of additional revenue without the need for additional raw materials, energy resources, or new equipment. The work has been vital to the increased biomanufacturing efficiency for the company.