Acquisition of TQS Integration Expands Cognizant’s Ability to Help Life Sciences Firms to Run on Data

Professional services firm Cognizant announced the acquisition, for an undisclosed fee, of Irish data and intelligence firm TQS Integration (TQS) in July 2021, as part of the firm’s strategy to support industrial and manufacturing firms’ digitalization efforts.

A critical component of realizing the benefits of digitalization is having data inform a complete view of a firm’s value chain; providing the information for data analytics to inform operational improvements. TQS has expertise in data collection, contextualization, visualization, and analytics supporting firms in the food and beverage, energy, and renewables industries, as well as the life sciences sector which is a major focus area for the acquisition.

TQS was founded in 1998 and today employs two hundred individuals who help companies maximize their utilization of data by providing consulting, turnkey solutions in system architecture and application design, system integration, and project management: improving customers’ decision making, providing visibility on operating costs, quickening the speed of implementation, and raising product quality and production yield.

The company helps manufacturers improve their data utilization by collecting data from SCADA systems and PLCs with the data analytics team delivering data modelling capabilities employing machine learning and AI. Additionally, the company looks to help customers optimize their processes by creating customized applications often incorporating robotic process automation (RPA) along with the support of program managers and consultants where appropriate. Currently TQS completes over three hundred projects a year from offices in Ireland, Spain, India, and the United States.

Of particular interest to Cognizant is the work TQS has done with 150 life sciences firms which include the likes of AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Roche, and Sanofi. Cognizant announced that it will combine TQS’s expertise with its own to assist life sciences firms automate processes, such as the processing of Individual Case Safety Reports (ICSRs) and expediting the production of medicines.

In addition, TQS has some notable partnerships that the company can also introduce during client engagements, including a collaboration with Sartorius Data Analytics, which is the analytics division of biotech company Sartorius. Through the collaboration TQS can deliver solutions and training of the firm’s software tools (Umetrics product suite, particularly SIMCA and SIMCA-online) that support regulatory compliance, optimize production, and improve product quality.

Supporting life sciences firm’s data analytics activities, TQS is a certified partner of Seeq whose expertise in advanced process analytics helps bio-tech firms’ digitalization strategies (see AN-5422 for more details) with TQS helping customers create a data infrastructure and digitalization roadmap.

TQS has been certified as a Google Partner with Google Cloud Partner Advantage, which means that TQS can develop, deploy, and optimize Google Cloud solutions, having had access to tools and training. The pharmaceuticals and life science industry are the focus of the arrangement with the two companies sharing their knowledge and advanced technologies plus combining their expertise and systems so that customers can access their data (R&D, manufacturing, operational) and carry out predictive analytics to streamline operations and ensure quality standards.

Also, TQS is a Global EA Premium Partner with OSIsoft and Global OSIsoft Select-Partner for Life Sciences and can provide advanced solutions for OSIsoft's Pi System, giving clients the capability to collect, analyze, and visualize current and historical machine data.

Overall, TQS enhances Cognizant’s ability to help manufacturers to embrace digitalization and Industry 4.0.

Industry 4.0 in the Pharmaceutical Industry (AN-5422) outlined the need for life sciences to reduce drugs’ time-to-market, control costs, and remain compliant with the ever-changing evolving regulatory demands. Cognizant looks to help life sciences firms meet these challenges by providing solutions that for example automate laboratory processes to enhance drug discovery and preclinical processes, and then optimize product development strategies. In general, Cognizant looks to help life sciences firms to take advantage of AI and machine learning to improve patients’ lives by mining data from clinical trials and looking to identify issues prior to regulatory scrutiny.

TQS's data intelligence capabilities will be a good fit with Cognizant's existing capabilities in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning and broaden its expertise in factory design consultation, data orchestration (from machine sensors and controllers), and can improve manufacturing processes with RPA. It is expected that TQS will work alongside the staff acquired in the June 2019 acquisition of another Irish firm Zenith Technologies, a privately held company specializing in life sciences manufacturing. Zenith Technologies specializes in implementing digital technologies that manage, control, and optimize the manufacturing of medical devices and production of drugs for operational efficiency and regulatory compliance.

TQS is Cognizant’s fifth acquisition in 2021. Notable other acquisitions in the last 12 months include data analytics and AI firm Servian Australia in January, UK machine learning firm Inawisdom in December 2020, and North Carolina based manufacturing data analytics firm Bright Wolf (see CA-1266 for ABI Research’s evaluation of the firm) in October 2020. Cognizant’s strategy mirrors Accenture’s (see IN-5830) by looking to provide customers with cutting edge solutions through acquisition and plugging-in the technology, rather than creating their own solutions.