The National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL) transitioned biopharmaceutical manufacturing ontologies to The Open Applications Group (OAGi), facilitating an open-source development approach. This move aims to expand industry involvement and standardize processes, thereby increasing the collective benefits for the biopharmaceutical field.
Ontologies serve as structured models used by domain experts to define data through specified entities, relationships, and attributes. These standardized models help improve data interoperability and management within the industry.
The adoption of biopharma-specific ontologies will improve productivity and interoperability by allowing data engineers to efficiently access, analyze, and share information about manufacturing processes. Moreover, open-source platforms promise wider access to these resources and support ongoing development and updates, creating a central hub for ontologies that are currently dispersed across different groups.
To advance this initiative, OAGi intends to establish the Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing Industry Council (BMIC), which will guide the development of these ontologies. This council will be part of OAGi's Industrial Ontologies Foundry (IOF), which works on creating ontologies across various industrial sectors.
The ontologies developed by NIIMBL have been part of its Big Data Program, aimed at fostering data-driven innovation and standardization to enhance the speed and resilience of biopharmaceutical manufacturing. These ontologies were tested and validated through a successful proof-of-concept project focused on biopharmaceutical manufacturing use cases.
The NIIMBL ontologies are developed in alignment with established upper ontologies like the IOF Core and Basic Formal Ontology, and they complement other projects underway at IOF across multiple industries. To ensure sustained progress, OAGi and NIIMBL have introduced a sponsorship model, encouraging companies, institutions, and government agencies to provide funding for expert contributions and necessary infrastructure enhancements to meet project goals. This model is also available for projects in other industries.
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