Proceedings of ESCAPE 36ISSN: 2818-4734
Volume: 5 (2026)
Table of Contents
LAPSE:2026.0296v1
Published Article
LAPSE:2026.0296v1
Probabilistic design spaces from small DoEs - A boundary-focused workflow using quantile surrogates
Tobias Overgaard, Emmanouil Papadakis, Maria-Ona Bertran, Maria M. Papathanasiou
June 12, 2026
Abstract
Probabilistic design spaces enable pharmaceutical manufacturers to balance regulatory compliance and operational efficiency. In this context, the "edge-of-failure" separating compliant from non-compliant operation is not a fixed line, but an uncertain region driven by model parameter uncertainty. Traditional methods typically map this probability of failure across the whole design space, which is a computationally expensive task. We propose a more direct approach, reformulating the problem using quantile functions to search for a deterministic boundary at a desired confidence level. These functions are approximated via Gaussian process surrogates using a novel adaptive sampling strategy. An industrial peptide acylation case study identifies the probabilistic design space using 13 experiments versus 18 from a traditional DoE; a 28% reduction. The framework quantifies trade-offs between operational robustness and yield optima.
Keywords
Adaptive sampling, Pharmaceutical manufacturing, Probabilistic design space, Surrogate modeling
Suggested Citation
Overgaard T, Papadakis E, Bertran M, Papathanasiou MM. Probabilistic design spaces from small DoEs - A boundary-focused workflow using quantile surrogates. Systems and Control Transactions 5:756-762 (2026) https://doi.org/10.69997/sct.107168
Author Affiliations
Overgaard T: Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Kongens Lyngby, Denmark. CMC & Product Supply, PS API, Novo Nordisk A/S, 4400 Kalundborg, Denmark
Papadakis E: CMC & Product Supply, PS API, Novo Nordisk A/S, 4400 Kalundborg, Denmark
Bertran M: CMC & Product Supply, PS API, Novo Nordisk A/S, 4400 Kalundborg, Denmark
Papathanasiou MM: The Sargent Centre for Process Systems Engineering, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom. Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
[Login] to see author email addresses.
Journal Name
Systems and Control Transactions
Volume
5
First Page
756
Last Page
762
Year
2026
Publication Date
2026-06-12
Version Comments
Original Submission
Other Meta
PII: 0756-0762-510-SCT-5-2026, Publication Type: Journal Article
Record Map
Published Article

LAPSE:2026.0296v1
This Record
External Link

https://doi.org/10.69997/sct.107168
Publisher Version
Download
Files
Jun 12, 2026
Main Article
License
CC BY-SA 4.0
Meta
Record Statistics
Record Views
212
Version History
[v1] (Original Submission)
Jun 12, 2026
 
Verified by curator on
Jun 12, 2026
This Version Number
v1
Citations
Most Recent
This Version
URL Here
https://psecommunity.org/LAPSE:2026.0296v1
 
Record Owner
PSE Press
Links to Related Works
Directly Related to This Work
Publisher Version
References Cited
  1. FDA. Guidance for Industry: Q8(R2) Pharmaceutical Development. 2009.
  2. Facco P, Dal Pastro F, Meneghetti N, Bezzo F, Barolo M. Bracketing the design space within the knowledge space in pharmaceutical product development. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 54:5128-5138 (2015) https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.5b00863
  3. Franceschini G, Macchietto S. Model-based design of experiments for parameter precision: state of the art. Chemical Engineering Science 63:4846-4872 (2008) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ces.2007.11.034
  4. Coleman MC, Block DE. Bayesian parameter estimation with informative priors for nonlinear systems. AIChE Journal 52:651-667 (2005) https://doi.org/10.1002/aic.10667
  5. Sachio S, Kontoravdi C, Papathanasiou MM. A model-based approach towards accelerated process development: a case study on chromatography. Chemical Engineering Research and Design 197:800-820 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cherd.2023.08.016
  6. Moshiritabrizi I, McMullen JP, Wyvratt BM, McAuley KB. A comparative study of strategies for incorporating uncertainty in design space determination for pharmaceutical manufacturing. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 64:21658-21668 (2025) https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.5c03037
  7. García-Muñoz S, Luciani CV, Vaidyaraman S, Seibert KD. Definition of design spaces using mechanistic models and geometric projections of probability maps. Org. Process Res. Dev. 19:1012-1023 (2015) https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.oprd.5b00158
  8. Kusumo KP, Gomoescu L, Paulen R, García Muñoz S, Pantelides CC, Shah N, Chachuat B. Bayesian approach to probabilistic design space characterization: a nested sampling strategy. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 59:2396-2408 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.9b05006
  9. Kucherenko S, Giamalakis D, Shah N, García-Muñoz S. Computationally efficient identification of probabilistic design spaces through application of metamodeling and adaptive sampling. Comput. Chem. Eng. 2020;132:106608. doi:10.1016/j.compchemeng.2019.106608Geremia
  10. Geremia M, Bezzo F, Ierapetritou MG. A novel framework for the identification of complex feasible space. Computers & Chemical Engineering 179:108427 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compchemeng.2023.108427
  11. Ding C, Ierapetritou M. A novel framework of surrogate-based feasibility analysis for establishing design space of twin-column continuous chromatography. International Journal of Pharmaceutics 609:121161 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpharm.2021.121161
  12. Metta N, Ramachandran R, Ierapetritou M. A novel adaptive sampling based methodology for feasible region identification of compute intensive models using artificial neural network. AIChE Journal 67: (2020) https://doi.org/10.1002/aic.17095
  13. Laky D, Xu S, Rodriguez JS, Vaidyaraman S, García Muñoz S, Laird C. An optimization-based framework to define the probabilistic design space of pharmaceutical processes with model uncertainty. Processes 7:96 (2019) https://doi.org/10.3390/pr7020096
  14. Moustapha M, Sudret B, Bourinet JM, Guillaume B. Quantile-based optimization under uncertainties using adaptive kriging surrogate models. Struct Multidisc Optim 54:1403-1421 (2016) https://doi.org/10.1007/s00158-016-1504-4
  15. Rasmussen CE, Williams CKI. Gaussian processes for machine learning. The MIT Press (2005) https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/3206.001.0001
  16. Deisenroth MP. Efficient Reinforcement Learning using Gaussian Processes. PhD thesis, KIT; 2010.
  17. Kim J, Song J. Quantile surrogates and sensitivity by adaptive gaussian process for efficient reliability-based design optimization. Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 161:107962 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2021.107962
  18. Wang Z, Shafieezadeh A. ESC: an efficient error-based stopping criterion for kriging-based reliability analysis methods. Struct Multidisc Optim 59:1621-1637 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1007/s00158-018-2150-9
  19. Bano G, Facco P, Bezzo F, Barolo M. Probabilistic design space determination in pharmaceutical product development: a bayesian/latent variable approach. AIChE Journal 64:2438-2449 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1002/aic.16133
  20. Meng Q, Bogle D, Charitopoulos VM. Probabilistic design space exploration and optimization via bayesian approach for a fluid bed drying process. European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences 210:107116 (2025) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejps.2025.107116
(0.13 seconds)

[0.14 s]