PAS-X is Korber's pharmaceutical MES, used to manage electronic batch records, material tracking, and regulatory compliance in validated GMP environments.
Definition
PAS-X is the dominant MES platform in pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturing, originally developed by Werum IT Solutions before Korber Technologies acquired them in 2019. It handles electronic batch records, material management, equipment management, and regulatory compliance in a single validated environment. I've placed dozens of PAS-X consultants and permanent hires across Europe and North America, and it remains the platform I see most often in pharma client mandates.
What this means when you're hiring
When a pharma client says they need MES experience, nine times out of ten they mean PAS-X. Validated environments running PAS-X are not places where companies take risks on candidates who've only read the manual. I routinely see clients disqualify strong MES generalists because they lack direct PAS-X configuration or implementation hours. Seniority matters enormously here: a PAS-X admin who's processed batch records is a very different hire from a PAS-X architect who's designed a site-wide rollout. Make sure you understand which one the client actually needs before sourcing.
Where candidates get this wrong
The biggest one I encounter is candidates claiming PAS-X experience because they worked in a facility that ran it, without ever touching the system themselves. Floor operators in a PAS-X environment are not PAS-X practitioners. The second misconception is that the Werum-to-Korber rebrand changed the platform fundamentally. It didn't. Korber layered on cloud capabilities and repackaged the product suite, but the core validated MES logic is the same system pharma manufacturers have been running for 20 years.
How expectations change by level
At junior-to-mid level I look for candidates who can configure electronic batch records, manage recipes, and support go-live activities. Senior hires need to have owned the validation lifecycle, written URS and FS documentation, and ideally led a multi-site rollout. The top 5% have regulatory audit experience, specifically defending PAS-X configurations to FDA or EMA inspectors. Those candidates are genuinely rare and command a significant premium.
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