Rockwell Automation, Inc., the world’s largest company dedicated to industrial automation and digital transformation, and Cytiva
Opens in a new window - New Window, a Danaher company and a leader in the life sciences industry, are jointly launching the Figurate Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system designed to remove digital bottlenecks during biopharmaceutical manufacturing. Working across multiple instrument vendors and modalities, Figurate SCADA provides the connectivity needed to enable digital integration to advance modern bioprocessing.
“Biopharma teams are under pressure to move more quickly, but their systems are often not built to keep up,” said Matt Weaver, vice president of global industry life sciences at Rockwell Automation. “This collaboration with Cytiva marks a pivotal step in our mission to democratize digital manufacturing, enabling biopharma innovators to deploy SCADA faster, smarter and more affordably.”
Many biopharma teams juggle proprietary systems that cannot communicate with one another, creating operational silos, manual workarounds and data integrity risks. The new system directly addresses this roadblock by having an open architecture, allowing for third-party equipment integration and real-time oversight of integration capable unit operations from a single interface.
The platform features:
- Built-in interoperability: The platform is integrated with Cytiva bioprocessing equipment and Rockwell Automation’s FactoryTalk® software suite, enabling seamless interoperability across systems.
- Scalable growth: A single platform expands from process development to commercial manufacturing without system redesign.
- Cost-effective compliance: A streamlined digital manufacturing system can reduce capital and operational costs and enables cGMP compliance.
- Rapid implementation: Pre-engineered templates and modular design shorten deployment and validation timelines.
- Enhanced operational insight: Centralized alarms, real-time monitoring, process intensification and batch reporting tailored to bioprocess workflows.
Nicolas Pivet, vice president, manufacturing capacity & digital solutions, Cytiva, said: “This collaboration is designed to empower the next generation of biomanufacturers. By combining Cytiva’s domain expertise with Rockwell’s automation leadership, we’re delivering a solution that’s both powerful and practical.”
Addressing an industry‑wide digital bottleneck
There is an increasing demand for next generation process control systems as organizations transition toward data driven process intensification and continuous manufacturing. Equipment fragmentation remains one of the top pain points cited by biomanufacturers, particularly those advancing programs from R&D to clinical scale.
By giving teams a unified digital control layer, the Figurate SCADA reduces the risk of human error, accelerates tech transfer and supports reliable scaleup as workloads grow in complexity.
