John Borland Award jointly recognizes innovations in Process Control Strategy Mapping and Virtual Collaboration

Britest is delighted to announce that our premier award recognizing significant contributions to innovation within the Britest community, has this year been jointly awarded to  Daniel R. Hill, Oliver Steinhof, John Paul Smelko, and Robert Guenard of Biogen for pioneering the development of Process Control Strategy Mapping: A Structured Approach to Identifying Process Control and Sensing Opportunities', and to Shaun Hughes, on behalf of the Britest User Group at AstraZeneca, Macclesfield for work on 'Enabling virtual collaboration with Britest'.

In the novel approach to Process Control Strategy Mapping, led by Biogen's Process Analytical Technology team in North Carolina, Britest PDD toolbox was leveraged to map manufacturing process controls across Biogen’s therapeutic modalities. Maps enable cross‐functional identification and prioritization of process control needs (e.g., sensing, model‐based) forming an innovation portfolio. Development teams systematically execute the innovation portfolio to deliver higher organizational efficiency and foundational elements for advanced process control..

Describing AstraZeneca's successful entry, Associate Principal Scientist in Chemical Development, Pharmaceutical Technology & Development, Shaun Hughes said, "The collaboration of scientist within AZ is key to how we deliver projects. Due to the global pandemic our old ways of working with the Britest tools, but also more broadly how we collaborate in general has been impacted. To maintain our ability to use the Britest tools virtually, the BUG set out to develop best practice for virtual tool use and facilitation. Over 2020 we have applied the innovative use of digital applications, implemented new facilitation methods and delivered training to achieve this. The way in which we use the tools has changed but the value they can add has not and we have maintained the ability to add value in the new virtual work place."

The  John Borland Award for Innovation was established by the Board in 2016 to mark the significant contribution to the development of Britest by the late John N. Borland, a pioneer of the Britest approach and a champion of innovative thinking. It is awarded annually by the Board of Directors to a person or persons who, in the opinion of Britest's Scientific Advisory Board, has made a significant contribution to innovation within the Britest community. Applications are welcomed from across the Britest community.

The winners of the John Borland Award for Innovation 2021 were announced at Britest Day 2021, Britest's premier annual innovation networking event, which this year was held as a virtual event. As well as being the first time the John Borland Award has featured joint winners, 2021 was also the first (and we hope only) time that we have been unable to present our winners with their well-earned trophy in person. Given the subject matter of one of the successful entries in particular this should in no way be seen as a diminishment of the importance of the recognition represented by the John Borland Award, however we look forward to bringing the winners and their prizes together as soon as circumstances allow.