Boehringer Ingelheim has deployed Virtuosi, a virtual training (VR) educational platform, across three of its aseptic manufacturing sites.

Virtuosi, developed by Quality Executive Partners (QxP), claims to be the “world’s first” and singular multi-language immersive training platform training platform for the pharmaceutical manufacturing operators in aseptic processing, cell and gene therapy processing, and microbiology.

The VR training platform will be deployed at Boehringer Ingelheim’s Biberach and Ingelheim sites in Germany, as well as a plant in Lyon, France. According to Robin Mersh, senior vice president of sales at Virtuosi, “there are many potential trainees across those three sites, [with] some of the biggest companies in the Boehringer Ingelheim network.”

Image: DepositPhotos/denisismagilov

While Mersh did not disclose any financial details regarding the deal, he did tell us that Boehringer Ingelheim “wanted to take advantage of the capabilities in aseptic training and [the] education now available with the use of VR, specifically with Virtuosi.”

The cloud-based learning platform consists of 56 courses and 26 VR immersive activities that are self-paced modules and LMS-integrated for reporting and evaluation reasons. The educational tool aims to speed skill building and return on investment for employee onboarding alongside improved operational efficiencies.

At Advanced Therapies 2022 in May, Mersh told BioProcess Insider that while “Virtuosi doesn’t solve everything and there will still be a bottleneck as we cannot replace traditional methods with VR […] those who use VR training are “less paranoid as there is no potential material costs and it can reduce training time up to 33%.”

Virtuosi is not the only company using VR to overcome recruitment and training issues. The Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult (CGT Catapult), for example, has introduced VR training across the entirety of its skills development programs to meet the demands of the industry.