Case Study: Noucor boosted its quality standards with Qualifyze

Executive Summary

Noucor is a life sciences company based in Barcelona with a history spanning almost two centuries. The company operates in over 100 markets worldwide and has both a chemical plant (Urquima, S.A.) and a pharmaceutical plant (Noucor Health, S.A.). Noucor’s operations encompass the development of new chemical entities, value-added medicines and generic products licensed to third parties. The company also offers contract manufacturing services. 

In 2023, Noucor was expanding its supplier network while facing increasing audit requests from customers. Maintaining internal resources under control was a challenge. Noucor implemented a new approach to scaling compliance, as part of a program to level up the company´s quality standards.

By partnering with Qualifyze, Noucor optimized its quality activities around audits by minimising variability and maximizing efficiency. The company increased the number of audits performed per budget by 15% on average.

In addition, by choosing to be audited as supplier, Noucor cut turnaround time for customer requests by 70%.

Challenges

• Multiple providers, tangible complexity. In 2023, looking ahead of the coming year, Noucor needed to ease workload and improve costs without undermining compliance. Harmonizing supplier audit management became a priority. 
• Manual processes. Tracking and planning of audits were done in Excel. Documentation approval processes slowed down operations, while no bandwidth existed to hire additional Quality staff.
• Compliance exposure: The audit frequency of each type of supplier site was established based on a risk assessment and sometimes the time between audits extended up to 5-6 years. This occasionally led to observations during audits or inspections. Noucor needed a cost-effective way to close this gap.

 

The Solution

Refusing to compromise on quality, Noucor chose to streamline its audit strategy by partnering with Qualifyze. This decision enabled Noucor´s team to do more, faster and better. 

Key elements of the solution included:

• Seamless digital experience. From real-time alerts to CVs of auditors, audit plans, and reports—all accessible via a single platform. Automatic CAPA tracking and report follow-ups reduced manual coordination, which was taken over by the Qualifyze support. The possibility to access ready-made reports from the platform enhanced planning flexibility.
• Enterprise-level audit coverage. Starting with 35 GMP audits in 2023, Noucor extended its contract to 55+ audits by 2025, covering GMP, GDP, Clinical, and Pharmacovigilance audits. 
• Expert auditors. Qualifyze auditors demonstrated deep technical expertise and structured reporting, with high quality content going beyond the checklist, which earned the trust of seasoned quality leaders at Noucor.

 

Impact

Operational Transformation

Qualifyze covers almost 100% of Noucor’s audit demands at both its pharmaceutical (Noucor Health) and its chemical site (Noucor-Urquima). With structured reports, automatic updates and real-time alerts, Noucor maintained compliance and stayed agile while avoiding the need to increase Quality headcount.

Trust as customers and as suppliers

Noucor led the way in trust generation. It proactively asked to be audited by Qualifyze and recommended their customers to audit them through Qualifyze, achieving measurable efficiencies:

Increased Quality Standards

The partnership with Qualifyze allowed Noucor to close the compliance gap, boosting audit frequency by 15%. The risk assessments to justify some audits were simplified, aligning better with inspector expectations.

By accessing recent reports in the Qualifyze library with one click or joining existing audits at short notice, the Quality team at Noucor could support business operations in a prompter, more flexible way.

 

Looking ahead: leading by example in modern audit management

With Qualifyze as a strategic partner, Noucor has proven that operational excellence is not about working more, but smarter. By taking ownership of its audit transformation, Noucor boosted not only its internal efficiency but also its standing as a partner of choice in the global pharma landscape.

As regulations evolve and business expectations rise, Noucor is set to continue leading the way in modern quality management.

Do you want to learn how our global audit services can help you streamline your operations and optimize resources?