LOS ANGELES, Jan. 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — IoT Breakthrough, a leading market intelligence organization that recognizes the most innovative companies in the global Internet-of-Things (IoT) market, today announced that Apprentice.io, pioneers of the industry’s first agentic manufacturing operations platform, has been selected as winner of the “Smart Manufacturing Innovation Award” in the 10th annual IoT Breakthrough Awards program.
The 2026 IoT Breakthrough Award recognizes Apprentice Pro – the industry’s first multi-enterprise, manufacturing execution system (MES). Apprentice Pro is Digital Center of Excellence-ready and proven to solve a critical challenge in biopharma manufacturing – enabling seamless collaboration across global sites while legacy systems trap process knowledge in silos, causing months-long tech transfers and forcing manufacturers to choose between speed and standardization.
Aprentice.io’s breakthrough solution is powered by the company’s Connected Manufacturing Network (CMN), a breakthrough Apprentice platform foundation that creates seamless connections between sites, organizations, and lifecycle stages, allowing manufacturing intelligence to flow across traditional boundaries. CMN’s Core/Site Team Switching capability connects users across separate single-tenant environments, with each maintaining data sovereignty while enabling cross-site collaboration through CMN’s connectivity. Leading manufacturers are deploying the platform at scale, validating its capabilities in production environments managing materials, equipment, and enterprise-wide operations.
Built as a comprehensive Digital Center of Excellence, Apprentice Pro enables manufacturers to standardize recipes globally, transfer processes between sites in hours instead of months, collaborate securely across organizational boundaries, and accelerate new product introduction. Enterprise-wide recipe management eliminates delays through standardized Batch Parameter Groups and intelligent version management, while External Sponsor Batch Review and Release Collaboration enables CDMOs and external sponsors to work seamlessly while maintaining data sovereignty—all with enterprise-wide visibility into materials, equipment, and operations.
“We’re proud to receive this recognition from IoT Breakthrough,” said Angelo Stracquatanio, CEO & Co-founder of Apprentice.io. “Unlike stitched-together solutions, CMN is a purpose-built cloud architecture that lets you manage, execute, and review production across internal and external teams, seamlessly and securely. “We’re proud to receive this recognition from IoT Breakthrough. Our CMN-powered Apprentice Pro fundamentally shifts biopharma from fragmented operations to unified global manufacturing intelligence, enabling faster commercialization and therapies reaching patients sooner.”
Leading manufacturers have proven CMN’s impact at scale. One global biopharmaceutical manufacturer achieved greenfield to go-live in under one year, with 26 procedures authored “digital first” in five months, now supporting fully validated GMP manufacturing for hundreds of millions of doses across three global locations. A multinational CDMO with 40+ facilities deployed six sites in nine months, achieving global standardization across US and EU operations. An international pharmaceutical company activated three sites in under eight months with four more in progress.
The mission of the IoT Breakthrough Awards program is to conduct the industry’s most comprehensive analysis of the global Internet-of-Things industry and recognize the breakthrough innovators, leaders and visionaries driving progress in a range of IoT categories, including Industrial and Enterprise IoT, Smart City technology, IoT Security, Connected Home and Home Automation, Connected Vehicles, and many more. This year’s program attracted thousands of nominations from over 15 companies around the world.
“Apprentice helps you move from chaos to coordination. Drug development requires seamless collaboration across global sites. However, legacy systems used in biopharma manufacturing trap process knowledge in silos, causing months-long tech transfers and forcing manufacturers to choose between speed and standardization,” said Steve Johansson, managing director, IoT Breakthrough. “Apprentice solutions made possible by their CMN, harmonize recipes and master data globally, enable instant tech transfers, and connect manufacturing sites worldwide. It’s our pleasure to award Apprentice with the ‘Smart Manufacturing Innovation Award!’”
About IoT Breakthrough
Part of the Tech Breakthrough, a leading market intelligence and recognition platform for global technology innovation and leadership, the IoT Breakthrough Awards program is devoted to honoring excellence in Internet-of-Things technologies, services, companies and products. The IoT Breakthrough Awards program provides a forum for public recognition around the achievements of IoT companies and products in categories including Connected Home and Home Automation, Enterprise IoT, Connected Vehicles, Industrial IoT (IIoT) and Smart City, Consumer IoT and more. For more information visit IoTBreakthrough.com.
Tech Breakthrough LLC does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in our recognition programs, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with award designations. Tech Breakthrough LLC recognition consists of the opinions of the Tech Breakthrough LLC organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Tech Breakthrough LLC disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this recognition program, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
About Apprentice
Apprentice is the industry’s first agentic manufacturing platform built for a world beyond paper and legacy MES. Apprentice unifies MES, LES, automation, and remote collaboration capabilities together in a modern, no-code platform while simultaneously deploying AI Agents to support every step of manufacturing. The embedded AI Agents operate autonomously to amplify human efforts, optimize processes, and scale throughput while reducing costs. The company’s technology drives innovation at every stage-from design and creation to simulation, execution, and optimization. For over a decade, we’ve helped life sciences companies integrate their people, processes, and systems into a single next-gen platform. Today, Apprentice serves all manufacturing sectors fulfilling the vision of what a digital “Apprentice” can be. For more information, visit http://www.apprentice.io.
