Cloud Quotient of Life Sciences Enterprise - Part 1
In the value chain of a typical Life Sciences company, from Drug Discovery and Development to Marketing and Sales a series of IT based applications and tools is being used. To start with the Drug discovery involves clinical research data which is highly sensitive and detailed. IT applications are prevalent for managing data objects like Laboratory Data (LIMS), Target Identification, Electronic data capture (EDC), clinical data (CDMS), contract research organizations (CROs), pre-clinical and clinical trials and associated supplies, electronic patient diaries, patients' Electronic Health Records (EHR), patent related data like NDA and the compliance documentation across all the processes. When it comes to manufacturing and sales there are IT applications being used for Integrated Business Planning, Demand Planning, Sales and Operations Planning, optimizing supply resources (SRM), Manufacturing execution (MES), transaction processing systems (ERP), warehousing and distribution (WMS), enhancing customer connect (CRM) and so on. Above all the operational tools comes the reporting and analytics application (BI) to make sense of the plethora of data generated everyday and aid the business decision making.
Cloud computing has surfaced in to two currents poised to transform the Life Sciences enterprises - first is the new way of carrying out some of the business activities or processes and second is the model of hosting enterprise applications. The extent of leveraging 'cloud' for its operational superiority and competitive advantage will decide the 'cloud quotient' of an enterprise.
The core function of Drug Discovery and Development is getting transformed with the new option of cloud computing. Health Social Networking is a good example of changing approach of business activities in a Life Sciences company and with increased activity on the internet, it has enormous potential of changing the way drug discovery and development works. Going beyond the traditional way of carrying out clinical trials, it is now the patient community on the internet which is feeding drug makers with inputs and sharing their responses with others with similar conditions. Tasks like subject identification and recruitment, patient diaries updating, assessing efficacy of drugs can all be now on the web. Also diseases experiences of other people around the world with similar conditions, treatment options, recommendations for best Doctors can all be known with the networking sites like patientslikeme.com and healthchapter.com
Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and Novartis are amongst the early adopters of the new technology option and exploring innovative ways of conducting activities like clinical trials, as observed in the publicly available reports. US FDA too recognizes secure external data center and data communication for clinical trials.
With the increasing popularity and adoption of cloud computing, now a key question is - what are the good-candidate applications in the IT landscape of an enterprise to move to cloud and will it indeed add value to the business. I'll try to delve upon this in my next post. Are you on the cloud?
Cloud computing has surfaced in to two currents poised to transform the Life Sciences enterprises - first is the new way of carrying out some of the business activities or processes and second is the model of hosting enterprise applications. The extent of leveraging 'cloud' for its operational superiority and competitive advantage will decide the 'cloud quotient' of an enterprise.
The core function of Drug Discovery and Development is getting transformed with the new option of cloud computing. Health Social Networking is a good example of changing approach of business activities in a Life Sciences company and with increased activity on the internet, it has enormous potential of changing the way drug discovery and development works. Going beyond the traditional way of carrying out clinical trials, it is now the patient community on the internet which is feeding drug makers with inputs and sharing their responses with others with similar conditions. Tasks like subject identification and recruitment, patient diaries updating, assessing efficacy of drugs can all be now on the web. Also diseases experiences of other people around the world with similar conditions, treatment options, recommendations for best Doctors can all be known with the networking sites like patientslikeme.com and healthchapter.com
Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and Novartis are amongst the early adopters of the new technology option and exploring innovative ways of conducting activities like clinical trials, as observed in the publicly available reports. US FDA too recognizes secure external data center and data communication for clinical trials.
With the increasing popularity and adoption of cloud computing, now a key question is - what are the good-candidate applications in the IT landscape of an enterprise to move to cloud and will it indeed add value to the business. I'll try to delve upon this in my next post. Are you on the cloud?
