Pharmaceutical Technologist - September/October 2008 - (Page 24)

Bringing pharma up to date The pharmaceutical industry urgently needs automated product life cycle management solutions that can streamline the drug development process, but the adoption of such technologies has been slow, despite its advantages. Ruchia Mallya from Datamonitor. T he pharma industry is in a state of turmoil as companies face severe competition from generic drugs, declining product pipelines, increasing government regulations, rising safety concerns and soaring R&D costs. To deal with the skyrocketing expenditure associated with drug development, companies are optimizing business processes by enhancing collaboration. Many are turning to technology and IT solutions to increase efficiency and streamline operations, and reduce costs and time to market. An area in which technology would greatly benefit the pharma industry is product life cycle management (PLM), which helps companies integrate the design, development and production processes related to bringing a new drug to market. PLM technologies provide a platform that enables companies to better manage their vastly important data, monitor compliance activities and collaborate with other stakeholders. On a fundamental level, PLM takes advantage of software applications that enable companies to manage their tangible and intangible assets throughout the drug life cycle. It links product data to people and processes, and offers upper management increased visibility into the research process, allowing for better decision-making in the management of the drug candidate. Instead of focusing on the bottom line of operational costs, PLM is targeted at product-oriented processes to, ultimately, drive revenue, which in turn is used to fund the discovery, development and commercialization efforts of future drugs. What many in the pharma industry need to understand is that PLM is not just a technology solution, but rather a strategy that can be employed to manage the entire drug development process from 24 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2008 PHARMACEUTICAL TECHNOLOGIST Robert Kohlhuber/Getty Images

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Pharmaceutical Technologist - September/October 2008

Pharmaceutical Technologist - September/October 2008 Contents Industry Highlights Morpheus Market Watch Smoke and Mirrors Reducing Data Burdens Keeping it Simple Bringing Pharma Up to Date

Pharmaceutical Technologist - September/October 2008

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