A shift in demand is expected as many pharmaceutical and biotechnology organizations express greater desire for a single, organization-wide enterprise electronic lab notebook.By Trevor Heritage, PhD, President, Symyx SoftwareThe scientific R&D; landscape is undergoing historic changes. Driven by globalization, demands to do more with less, and the constant need to demonstrate return on investment, scientists are under tremendous pressure to increase efficiency and improve productivity not only at the experimental level but across the organization. Along with this pressure, scientists are faced with numerous challenges resulting from industry outsourcing and increasing company consolidation driven by mergers and acquisitions. As organizations enlist CROs for outsourced projects and merged companies combine assets, the likelihood of communication and information sharing breakdowns across geographical and corporate boundaries increases. Combine these challenges with the pressure to deliver breakthrough results, and we find ourselves in an environment where scientists are under unprecedented stress.
Over the last decade, electronic lab notebooks (ELNs) have emerged as one of the primary scientific informatics solutions for helping scientists design, execute, analyze, and report on experiments. ELNs help scientists focus on science rather than documentation. They also enable scientists to share experimental results and learn from the knowledge of their colleagues.
A recent industry report from
Atrium Research pegged the growth of the electronic lab notebook market at 20 to 30 percent annually. Along with this growth, a shift in demand is expected as many pharmaceutical and biotechnology organizations express greater desire for a single, organization-wide enterprise electronic lab notebook.
Domain-specific ELNs like those used specifically in discovery, process or formulations chemistry create silos of information that are difficult to manage, access, contrast, and compare. More and more, organizations in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, chemicals, and consumer products are demanding a single, enterprise lab notebook that provides improved productivity, operational agility and the ability to do more with less. Organizations are looking to combat data silos, multiple user interfaces, bottlenecks in the flow of information, inaccurate data, inconsistent processes and unsustainable costs of ownership.
A single notebook for the enterpriseA single notebook deployed across the enterprise can be used across multiple scientific disciplines, as well as across the entire R&D; spectrum—from early discovery to late-phase development, and on into early manufacturing. By centrally and consistently capturing scientific informatics, an enterprise notebook fosters workflow optimization, process consistency, collaboration, and improved productivity through knowledge sharing. Scientists can improve their own productivity by learning from the experimental methodologies and results captured by their colleagues. And with the shifting priorities of today's R&D;, an enterprise ELN provides the flexibility to rapidly and easily start new projects and transfer resources.
Many organizations are investing in global R&D; processes, outsourced R&D; operations and contract research organizations (CROs), which further highlights the need for a single, flexible, cross-disciplinary, enterprise notebook. Without an enterprise notebook strategy, organizations face proliferating data silos and inconsistent data and processes—a situation only made worse for project teams working across geographic boundaries.
An enterprise ELN facilitates collaboration with CROs by supporting: • Workflow coordination across geographic and business boundaries • Authoring of experiments by multiple scientists • Data capture and data access across the globe and between business networks • Secure control of read/write access at experiment and experiment section levels • Regulated and unregulated lab documentation procedures, as appropriate.
Integration is keyWith the enterprise ELN functioning as the central hub for workflow applications on the scientist's desktop, it must support integration with best-of-breed tools, workflows, laboratory apparatus, lab automation software, and data management systems. Common integration points include statistical analysis software, chromatography data software, data repositories, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, and kinetic modeling software. Integration is essential for successfully optimizing scientific processes and fully leveraging intellectual property across disciplines, departments, and external collaborators.
As integration becomes increasingly important for R&D; organizations, the enterprise electronic lab notebook needs to be highly configurable and only require customization through application development as a last resort. When customization is needed, it should be done through consistent, open, and well-documented programmable interfaces. If this is not the case, then the organization compromises future ELN upgrades, as well as its long-term ELN strategy.
Fortunately, the benefits of enterprise ELNs are not limited to scientists and researchers, and are shared across the organization. IT departments need only support a single ELN rather than multiple notebooks from different vendors. Business executives gain an increase in productivity, reduced total cost of ownership and increased overall return on investment.
Enabling collaborative R&D; With the current state of the economy, the increase in generic drugs, and the pressures of ongoing mergers and acquisitions, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries are undergoing unprecedented change. In light of this uncertain, ever-changing business environment, R&D; organizations are seeking smarter, more efficient informatics solutions. The enterprise ELN—adaptable to meet the needs of multiple disciplines in a collaborative R&D; environment—is a strategy for improved success, increased ROI and enhanced productivity.
Trevor Heritage joined Symyx in 2007 as a result of Symyx Technologies' acquisition of MDL Information Systems, where he was serving as chief scientific officer and senior vice president of software product management and strategy. Previously, Dr. Heritage was senior vice president, corporate officer and general manager of Tripos Inc.'s discovery informatics and software consulting services business. He has a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Reading, England.