How is the biopharmaceutical industry mastering data management during bio production?

With the advancements in technology we are able to make better and wiser decisions that can impact the way we develop products nowadays however with better analytics comes more data and the question now is how to manage this. We asked Jarrod Medeiros, Product Specialists at the leading data management company IDBS about their thoughts on the subject and what advice they could share

Informa: you recently published a white paper on the subject. Why was that?

IDBS: Because we wanted to educate the community on some of the problems we’ve solved for similar customers.

Informa: How can ineffective data management impact the development of biologics?

IDBS:There are a few effects. A major one is efficiency, we’ve found through working with various customers that a large portion of scientists’ time is spent looking for data, transcribing data, and other low value activities associated with paper notebooks, binders, and MS Excel. Another big effect we’ve seen is on quality. This includes the quality of the data itself which can be compromised due to hand writing and transcribing between systems. But also the quality of the output, when data is ineffectively managed the reports and analyses that can be done are limited.

Informa: What advice would you give to industry to handle the vast volumes of data produced in biological development?

IDBS:Use E-WorkBook?! Come talk to us!? J I suppose the first step is to admit it is a problem, and then work with vendors that have expertise in solving these challenges.

Informa: How should data management systems be applied to improve decision making in the development and manufacturing of biological products?

IDBS: One of the largest impacts on decision making comes from the ad-hoc analyses that can be done. It’s easy to prepare data and visualizations that need to be used regularly, but when something unexpected happens it is time consuming and sometimes impossible to pull data together in an ad-hoc manner. Data management systems should capture the relationships and context required to be able to quickly view traceability and make decisions.

Informa: What do you see as the best strategies for gaining insight from the increasing amount of data generated and translating this data into knowledge outcomes for products and processes?

IDBS: The best strategy is to move away from a paper and MS Excel-based process as soon as possible. The longer you wait to implement an electronic system for data management, the more of your historical data continues to be in an unusable state.

A details look at data management will take place in a free webinar on Thursday 8th October 2015 at 16:00 GMT UK / 17:00 CET time. Those interested can register for free using the following webinar link

For copies of the white paper writen by IDBS please click here