// RAMP Up!

Resilience with AI for
Materials and Medicine Production &
Scale Up USA Institute

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We bring together industry, academia, government, standards development organizations, and workforce partners to develop secure, trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions that enhance the resilience of essential medicine, vaccine, and diagnostic supply chains in the United States.

Partner network

Overview

The RAMP Up! USA Institute, led by Purdue University, assembles a first-of-its-kind ecosystem network of industry, academia, government, standards development organizations, and workforce systems partners to develop secure, trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions that enhance the resilience of essential medicine, vaccine, and diagnostic supply chains in the United States. Addressing critical national needs and gaps, RAMP Up brings together a diverse multifaceted collaboration of pharmaceutical manufacturers with their Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), material suppliers, tech industry leaders, and academic experts to harness AI's potential.

The Institute will help produce safe, effective medicines at lower costs while comprehensively addressing energy, water, and waste management challenges. RAMP Up will enable novel, secure, and efficient capabilities for creating and sharing data on medical product supply chains, manufacturing processes, and quality control, including for critical medicines and starting materials such as generic antibiotics from the FDA's List of Essential Medicines.

Use Cases

The RAMP Up! manufacturing testbeds are designed to provide a development platform for dataset creation, demonstration, and deployment of AI applications to advance the availability of medicines in the US by improving manufacturing yield and ensuring high-quality products. Targeted use cases include:

Formulation and Process Development

Optimize drug product formulation by predicting the best combinations of excipients and APIs to enhance stability and bioavailability.

Process Monitoring and Control

Advanced process control, enabling dynamic adaptation of manufacturing processes, ensuring consistent product quality.

Predictive Equipment Maintenance

Prediction of manufacturing equipment failures before they occur, reducing downtime and maximizing overall production capacity.

Quality Assurance

Product quality control systems that can detect defects and ensure compliance with regulatory standards.

Environmental Resilience

The application of AI for optimizing energy and water use, and reducing toxic waste in medical products manufacturing and distribution.

Objectives

Our mission is to enable trustworthy AI in cGMP manufacturing, fortifying the resilience of US medical product manufacturing and supply chains. Our mission will be achieved through collaborative activities aimed at the following objectives:

  1. Develop a multi-stakeholder, public-private network encompassing the value chain of essential medical products manufacturing in the US with the AI technologies ecosystem.

    Our ecosystem network will include major pharmaceutical companies developing and manufacturing novel medicines, manufacturers of generic pharmaceuticals, original equipment manufacturers (OEM), high-purity raw materials and instrument vendors for the pharmaceutical industry, tech industry and startups, regulatory experts.

  2. Establish a network of shared-access Data Commons and Manufacturing Testbed facilities.

    The facilities provide cyber, governance, and physical infrastructure for the development, demonstration, and validation of AI tools at the environment and scale relevant for manufacturing critical medical products such as essential pharmaceuticals and diagnostics.

  3. Design and deploy processes for developing and validating AI/ML tools compliant with FDA regulations to advance the manufacturing of high-quality essential medicines.

    The development project categories will include technology development based on science and standards and transferrable credentials for education and workforce training.

Programs & Services

Collaborative Research Projects

Industry-led collaborative research projects focusing on pre-competitive research initiatives. These projects aim to apply AI to manufacturing processes, supply chain management, and quality control, driving innovation and efficiency.

SME Support Program

The SME (small and medium-sized enterprises) Support Program offers AI readiness assessments, tailored consulting, and implementation support. SMEs will also have access to shared AI infrastructure and tools, enabling them to leverage advanced technologies without significant upfront investment.

Education and Workforce Development

Education and workforce development are prioritized to ensure a skilled labor force. This includes developing AI in manufacturing curricula and providing online training modules. Members receive prioritized access to these resources, including training programs for the current workforce and opportunities for internships and apprenticeships.

Standards Development

Collaborations with NIST and industry partners will focus on creating AI standards for manufacturing, including applications like large language models (LLMs) and automated visual inspection.

Technology Showcases and Demonstrations

Regular technology showcases and demonstrations will highlight AI applications in manufacturing, with pilot programs and test beds for new technologies providing practical insights and validation.

Software

Developing open-source software and deploying AI tools. Requests for proposals (RFPs) in years two and three will focus on deploying solutions, to achieve actual adoption and create new, improved datasets.

Datasets

New and improved datasets generated through the development of new software and standards will be released in a steady progression, initially shared internally, then with partners, and finally disseminated publicly as appropriate.