Pharma2 is part of a multinational company that employs around 10,000 people. Its headquarters are in the USA. In the Netherlands, Pharma2 runs a production facility with a total of 1,400 employees. Pharma2 has long historic roots in the Netherlands: it just celebrated the centenary of its existence in the Netherlands. Pharma2 played a role in the development of the contraceptive pill. After being part of several successive owners, in 2021 Pharma2 became an independent company focusing on women’s health. R&D activities are no longer part of Pharma2 as in the past, but these activities are being further developed in pharmaceutical start-ups near Pharma2’s production sites. The Dutch sites of Pharma2 are active in production, packaging and distribution. Business processes include high-quality technological production and more simple packaging operations as well (and other operations).
Pharma2 works according to the principle of continuous improvement of business processes and every plant in the Netherlands has its own ‘Improvement Engineer’. The company can be characterised as a ‘professional organization that continuously reflects about opportunities in process innovations in the triangle ‘Systems – Processes – People’ (interview Pharma2 HR). During the last three years, Pharma2’s IT department (‘Business Technology’, BT) focused on the implementation of Pharma2’s own basic IT system, independently from the (old) systems of the former owner. Now, the company can think more about IT innovations in the longer term, specifically in the field of AI. One of the innovations is the use of advanced camera systems for visual inspections of the quality of the products. ‘This does not mean that the human inspectors / laboratory technicians are redundant but that they can be employed in better ways in less monotonous working conditions (interview Pharma2 BT). Another AI example is a machine learning tool for reporting malfunctions in the factories, initiated centrally in the multinational. Employees encounter AI in everyday work, such as the works council which reads minutes of the meetings between the management and the European Works Council, prepared with AI support.
Recently the headquarters in the USA disseminated a short AI Policy document with basic global guidelines for using AI in the company, including considerations of transparency, human orientation, privacy, robustness and regulatory compliance. This document differentiates between AI in ‘low risk’ and AI in ‘high risk’ environments. Pharma2 in the Netherlands was not involved in the development of this policy. This top-down initiative and its centralised policy assurance is linked to the highly regulated environment of the pharma business (interview Pharma2 BT). The main guidelines do not mention the assessments of AI impacts on employment, jobs or professions.
