Corporate pressure stemming from depleted product pipelines and sales declines is driving IT adoption at life sciences companies, with the goals of process streamlining and R&D productivity gains. But some IT execs still have a bad taste in their mouths from IT odysseys that have failed to deliver.
Nonetheless, life sciences spending on IT is rising--projected to reach $17 billion this year--as companies explore ways to address critical and fundamental issues, says Ruchi Mallya, pharmaceutical technology analyst at Ovum. Such issues include the cost of maintaining paper-based systems for clinical trial reporting, with expenses "upwards of $500,000" for correcting data-entry mistakes alone. She also cites the cost of reconciling data from siloed departments that use different automation systems in an environment lacking information-sharing standards.
Silo-busting has become a common theme among trial-automation solution providers. It's more than just a systems integration issue. Data freed from silos can be combined and presented in many ways and at many levels, bringing grass-roots analytics to corporate planning.
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