The pharmaceutical industry spends billions of dollars in research and development annually, with the goal of finding the right drug for many of the medical conditions affecting individuals around the world. The dedication and diligence of scientists, along with countless hours of research, produces the drugs responsible for curing or alleviating the pain and discomfort of many illnesses. Whether the research in question is a collaborative effort or a proprietary one, the ability to share research data allows new perspectives and creative solutions to be introduced.
A new SaaS-based information management and collaboration workspace by Accelrys, a provider of scientific innovation lifecycle management software, called ScienceCloud, will introduce a new level of collaborative drug discovery. The integrated application is a new approach for addressing the needs of researchers built on a scalable cloud-based scientific platform with no software to manage and hardware to maintain.
By eliminating the complexities associated with the software and hardware side of networked research, ScienceCloud is able to deliver a cloud solution for externalized life science research and development, redefining collaboration and creativity in the new frontier of medical research.
Removing or greatly reducing the cost and maintenance of an on-site IT infrastructure will introduce flexibility and agility by making information accessible anywhere and anytime. The Accelrys solution provides a platform that understands the importance of security in the research field. It offers project-centered IP storage in a secure information warehouse with enforcement of sponsor business rules on results posted by network partners.
The platform also integrates the virtual workspace with applications and tools for mobile platforms with social communication so teams across different departments and regions can build and share project information.
Using ScienceCloud researchers are able to access research data, experiments, chemical structures, assays and other test results quickly and efficiently to make informed decisions on the latest available information. With complete and continuous visibility of any project, research managers are able to gain better understanding by being able to access the latest results across all organizations that are part of the effort.
By being able to upload, process, store, search and analyze structured and unstructured scientific records, organizations that are sponsoring the research are able to spin up and spin down partner engagement with the available data provided partitioned securely in the system.
The ScienceCloud open ecosystem delivers:
- Collaborative project management
- Experiment in IP capture
- Custom business rules extension
- Mobile device enablement
- Publishing and sharing services
With this platform collaboration and partnerships between pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, contract research organizations (CROs) and academic research teams will be able to share data in unprecedented ways to accelerate product development from research to market.
"Today a significant amount of discovery work is done through partner alliances. Because of this new business model, life science partner networks need better ways to connect and collaborate than email, e-rooms and repurposed legacy systems,” said Matt Hahn, Ph.D., senior vice president and chief technology officer at Accelrys. “ScienceCloud is a flexible and robust workspace where virtual project teams can securely share the data and apps they need to drive successful outcomes in a fast-changing global and mobile research landscape."
Edited by
Alisen Downey
