CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
19 June 2007
Company News
Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences Companies Look to a More Holistic Approach to Enterprise-Wide Content Management
Facing increased regulatory and legal scrutiny, pharmaceutical and life sciences companies have rushed to adopt new technology to cope. But the rapid pace of adoption has left many companies juggling a hodge-podge of information silos. Their biggest challenge today is taking an enterprise wide approach to managing enterprise content that ensures consistency, speeds product development and reduces costs.
According to Open TextT Corporation, life sciences industry companies need to create an enterprise-wide content management strategy to consolidate content-centric applications, and provide a holistic, centralized view of business content across all systems, repositories and geographies.
In the pharmaceutical industry, accurate and reliable documentation is essential to show that critical processes that could impact human health, such as the manufacture of a drug, have been performed to industry standards. Sharing key information with team members, making the best decisions possible based on all relevant information, and complying with regulatory requirements are crucial. An enterprise-wide content management strategy improves information sharing across departments and supports critical processes for the compliant management of all paper and electronic records and documents.
"Because life sciences companies deal with human health and the safety of new drugs and devices, the information management stakes are very high," said Brett Shellhammer, Vice President of Business Solutions for Open Text. "Creating enterprise transparency is a major challenge as the product development stages become segmented between departments and content does not transition efficiently through the phases of the drug lifecycle. Inconsistent processes can lead to not only serious impacts to project timelines and schedules but also significant legal and regulatory compliance risks. By implementing an enterprise content management system, life sciences companies can ensure that all vital information is secured and centrally managed, increasing operational efficiencies and mitigating risk."
In addition to the benefits of information sharing and reduced duplication of efforts, life sciences companies are recognizing the pure cost advantage of a single ECM system for the housing of all vital business information. By deploying a single ECM platform for the management of finance and operational content, drug development documents, clinical trials and patient record information, Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), and quality control documents, companies can lower the total-cost-of-ownership of content management technology, and significantly reduce the roll-out and training investment associated with the deployment of a new desktop application.
Life sciences companies can take several steps to ensure they're on the right path to achieving enterprise transparency by leveraging existing technology solutions and content repositories and coupling them with a next-generation enterprise content management framework. Powerful enterprise search functions, security controls to ensure appropriate access, metadata capture, secure information retrieval with process automation tools, and intuitive retrieval capabilities are all required to ensure content is available to appropriate users when they need it and in the context of how they are working with that content.
Open Text recognizes the emerging industry need to have enterprise transparency and an enterprise-wide content management strategy in life sciences. With Open Text's ECM solutions and applications for life sciences companies, customers can more effectively leverage content and metadata investments across applications and the organization, to provide a unified view of business content for risk mitigation, compliance with regulatory requirements, as well as significant productivity gains and better decision-making.
"Life sciences companies look to Open Text, not only for the latest software solutions, but also for people who truly understand their complex business requirements as it relates to content management, security, and solutions for regulatory content and submissions management, quality management, and clinical trials procedures," added Shellhammer. "We possess the domain expertise, re-usable best practices, and a strong network of partners that work closely with us to develop and extend the value of our offerings for pharmaceutical and life sciences companies."
Open Text will be showcasing its industry-specific solutions for pharmaceutical and life sciences companies at DIA's 43rd Annual Meeting ( http://www.diahome.org/DIAHome/FlagshipMeetings/home.aspx?meetingid=11362 ) being held this week in Atlanta, Georgia, at the Georgia World Congress Center. Open Text will be at booth # 115.
Detailed information about Open Text's life sciences solutions can be found at http://www.opentext.com/2/sol-industry/sol-ind-pharma.htm
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