Background and Achievements:
IAAE formed its Life Sciences Advisory Board (LSAB) in 2016, and currently has representation from leaders within Amgen, Fujifilm Biotechnologies, J&J, Lilly, Merck, Organon, Genentech, Parabilis Medicines, Takeda, Thermo Fisher Scientific, West Pharmaceutical Services and Vertex Pharmaceuticals. The Academy has set an audacious goal of credentialing 10,000 learners globally and engaging 10 of the top 20 companies in each regulated health industry by the end of 2035. Recent milestones include a case study on accelerating people development at Vertex Pharmaceuticals through education and credentialing, a Human-Centric Manufacturing Culture Study undertaken with Digital Manufacturing Ireland and MIT, and ongoing workforce projects with Manufacturing USA institute NIIMBL.
Challenges to be addressed by AR:
Life Sciences manufacturers face a widening skills gap as experienced operators and engineers retire, taking tribal knowledge with them, while incoming talent needs to be brought up to speed quickly within tightly regulated, GxP environments. Traditional on-the-job training is inconsistent, hard to scale across sites, and difficult to validate for regulatory purposes. IAAE sees AR as a way to capture expert know-how before it is lost, deliver consistent hands-on training without pulling equipment or experienced staff off the line, and provide immersive, repeatable learning experiences that can be measured and credentialed. AR also offers a route to bridging the frequent gap between automation engineering and manufacturing teams, helping operators and engineers better understand and trust the systems they work with every day.
Why AR is a strategic area:
Workforce capability building sits at the heart of IAAE’s mission, and AR is emerging as a practical tool for delivering that capability at scale in regulated Life Sciences manufacturing. As IAAE expands its course catalogue and works with its Life Sciences Advisory Board member companies on digital transformation, AR-enabled training and digital twin technologies offer a way to make learning more immersive, more measurable, and easier to validate within GxP frameworks. Membership in the AREA connects IAAE to the wider enterprise AR ecosystem, giving the Academy access to research, best practices, and technology partners that can strengthen its course content and help its member companies build the business case for adopting AR in their own training and operations programs.
