Project Farma has entered a definitive agreement to acquire Cork-based SimoTech, adding manufacturing automation and regulated IT expertise to its life sciences engineering and technical-services operation. The transaction remains subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals, and financial terms have not been disclosed.
SimoTech brings capability across distributed control systems, manufacturing execution systems, supervisory control and data acquisition, programmable logic controllers, data historians, and Good Manufacturing Practice IT systems. Project Farma already works across project management, project controls, commissioning, qualification and validation, quality, regulatory compliance, and manufacturing engineering.
The combination places automation design and manufacturing systems closer to the teams responsible for bringing pharmaceutical facilities into qualified operation. Modern plants depend on digital control from individual production machines through process automation, electronic records, utilities, and plant-wide information systems, while each regulated system must also be tested and documented before routine manufacturing begins.
Those activities are difficult to separate cleanly. A technically functioning control system can still delay production if its configuration, documentation, access controls, audit trails, testing, or data integrity fail to satisfy the requirements placed on regulated manufacture.
The reverse problem can occur when validation is considered too late. Automation designed without a clear understanding of how functions will be tested and documented can create unnecessary qualification work, particularly where interfaces between PLCs, distributed control systems, manufacturing execution software, and data platforms were not defined consistently at the start.
SimoTech describes its work around designing, building, operating, and optimising critical process-automation systems, while Project Farma supports pharmaceutical facilities from early project planning through commissioning, operational readiness, and ongoing manufacturing support.
SimoTech was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Cork. PerkinElmer, Project Farma’s parent company, describes the business as the largest Irish-owned automation and manufacturing IT company and says it serves 10 of the world’s 20 largest pharmaceutical and biotechnology manufacturers.
Existing SimoTech customer teams and relationships are expected to continue following completion of the transaction. Retaining those engineers will be central to the value of the acquisition because industrial automation capability depends heavily on people familiar with particular control systems, production processes, customer standards, and live manufacturing sites.
The technology portfolio spans several layers of plant operation. Distributed control systems can coordinate major process operations, utilities, sequences, and control loops, while PLCs commonly manage individual machines or equipment packages. SCADA platforms provide supervisory monitoring, and MES software connects production workflows with electronic manufacturing records and operational data.
Data historians preserve time-series process information needed for troubleshooting, performance analysis, and investigations. Those systems increasingly interact with manufacturing IT and quality platforms, creating a chain in which a change at equipment level can affect the records used to demonstrate what happened during a production batch.
Pharmaceutical manufacturing makes those interfaces particularly sensitive. Digital records can form part of the evidence showing that a product was made under its approved process, placing requirements around user access, audit trails, data retention, backup, recovery, software changes, and system security alongside conventional automation performance.
Cybersecurity also becomes harder to separate from process engineering as more manufacturing equipment is connected. Software patches, remote support, operating-system changes, network segmentation, and obsolescence have to be managed without undermining production availability or the validated state of critical systems.
Project Farma’s existing commissioning, qualification and validation capability sits directly around those requirements. CQV programmes establish that facilities, utilities, equipment, and systems have been installed correctly and operate according to defined requirements before being released into regulated manufacturing.
Adding SimoTech’s automation capability could extend that involvement earlier into functional design, control architecture, software development, integration, and testing, while also providing a route into lifecycle support after a new line enters production.
That lifecycle element is substantial. Automation systems can remain in service for many years, during which hardware becomes obsolete, software versions change, recipes and production processes evolve, cybersecurity expectations increase, and additional equipment has to be connected to existing plant networks.
Managed services and continuing engineering support therefore provide a different revenue and technical model from one-off capital-project work. They also leave the service provider responsible for systems whose failure can stop manufacturing, making continuity of customer knowledge and engineering staff particularly important through an acquisition.
PerkinElmer acquired Project Farma in 2025 as a specialist platform for pharmaceutical manufacturing services. Adding SimoTech would broaden that operation further into the digital and automation systems controlling day-to-day production.
The transaction has not yet completed, so operational integration remains prospective. The businesses will still have to align commercial processes, quality systems, project methods, cybersecurity responsibilities, management structures, and employee retention without disrupting live customer programmes.
Those are not minor details in specialist engineering acquisitions. The useful assets include software knowledge, customer-specific standards, system configurations, and engineers who know why a plant was built the way it was. Most of that expertise does not appear on the balance sheet and can leave through the front door rather more easily than a DCS cabinet.
If the acquisition closes, Project Farma will cover a wider span from capital-project planning and qualification through to the automation and manufacturing IT systems that operate regulated facilities. The strategic fit is straightforward; preserving the specialist knowledge inside SimoTech will determine how much of it survives the transaction.
