8 TECH OUTLOOKDecember - 2020IN MY OPINIONThe Next Big Thing in Pharma and Life sciences industryBy Mark Williams, VP & CIO, ACI ClinicalBenefits of Cloud Computing for the Pharma and Life Sciences IndustryThe Pharma and Life sciences industry is an information processing business first and a product manufacturing and distribution business second. With the advent of cloud computing infrastructure-as-a-service, "Big Data" technologies and analytic methodologies, scientific research is being transformed from the days of high cost, time and labor intensive biomolecular candidate screening techniques, to targeted computer-driven molecular candidate identification, thereby saving many millions of dollars and years of time off the early pre-clinical research landscape. As promising candidates progress to human trials, the benefits of cloud computing continue as well.Much of the human trial clinical data capture, document management and statistical analysis application space offerings are now available as software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution deployed through cloud infrastructures. A Pharma or biotech startup today would find it difficult to justify building out and staffing a wholly-owned and operated computing and software infrastructure, with all the subsequent and required validation and change control documentation needed in a regulated industry. It is far more efficient in terms of cost and time to simply "rent" a secure, validated and regulatory compliant infrastructure when necessary to meet a research goal or objective. There is really no good business justification to purchase hardware and software that would sit idle the vast majority of time. Nor does it make sense for a Biotech or pharma company to employ an army of IT specialists. While IT is strategic to life sciences, IT in itself is not the focus. Moving life-improving and life-saving biopharmaceutical products through the phases of research and regulatory approval "IS" the business.
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