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The pressure to contain costs is at an all time high for the pharma industry as the cost of raw materials continues to rise
and more stringent regulatory requirements are mandated. In response, the industry is increasingly outsourcing manufacturing
operations and raw materials development, which has led to a growth in the number of CMOs and API manufacturers. Just as pharma
companies must comply with the FDA and other regulations, however, outsourced suppliers must also provide the same level of
compliance throughout the entire process or production line. Furthermore, they must show their pharma sponsors the transparency
necessary to obtain data quickly and easily.
As the sponsor pharmaceutical company is ultimately responsible for the quality and safety of the developed drug, it will
often dictate to CMOs and API manufacturers which methods and processes will be used. The sponsor will also usually deploy
informatics software that facilitates information sharing and enables a reliable audit trail of data management to be traced
through product development and manufacture. Enterprise level laboratory information management systems (LIMS) are increasingly
relied upon as key contributors in this effort. Delivering advanced functionality that is specific to each stage of the drug
development process, sophisticated and purposebuilt LIMS streamline processes, automate operations and reduce costs. The systems
deliver real-time analysis and reports, facilitating regulatory compliance and product quality, and can integrate with a company's
broader network to provide secure access to key data throughout the organisation.
Not all LIMS are created equal
Historically, industry standard LIMS have only delivered 30–40% of specific functionality targeted to each user's needs and
have required extensive customisation to make them function in that particular setting.1 This minimal industryspecific functionality, combined with often outofdate proprietary languages or reliance on a costly
IT infrastructure, has been particularly troublesome in the pharmaceutical industry, which has traditionally relied upon its
own user documentation, design documentation, validation scripts and help files — all of which require continuous maintenance
by an extensive IT staff. This high degree of customisation presents a drain on resources and increases the expense associated
with maintaining laboratory infrastructure. As a consequence, implementing LIMS in various pharmaceutical laboratory settings
has typically been a long, costly and arduous process — not only during installation and validation, but also in operating
and maintaining the system over time.
The growing mandates of global regulatory compliance and longterm data traceability, as well as the complexity of laboratory
testing and emphasis on batch versus sample management, have forced pharmaceutical manufacturers to extensively adapt generic LIMS to meet their specific requirements
— lengthy and costly customisation, validation and implementation periods (in many cases lasting 36 months or more) have become
routine.1
Because pharmaceutical companies rely on the external services of CMOs for production and API manufacturers for their raw
materials, it is advantageous for informatics systems to be aligned between the sponsoring pharma company and their outsourced
partners. This ensures that processes are consistent, manufacturing protocols are reliably maintained and that data are available
throughout the entire chain of production to all levels of management in the sponsoring company.
Purpose-built LIMS
Purpose-built LIMS that provide as much application-specific functionality as possible outofthebox eliminate the need for
customisation and, ultimately, result in reduced validation and deployment time, as well as easier ongoing support. Such systems
are already being implemented by many pharmaceutical companies because they provide the necessary documentation to meet regulatory
and government standards, and can also help to generate cost savings in personnel and production time.
Purpose-built LIMS for pharmaceutical manufacturing processes have a unique batch and product-oriented design that aligns
directly with the manufacturing workflow, allowing production data to be logically organised, summarised and reported. The
system can also incorporate dashboardready functionality, enabling managers to make faster, more informed decisions. Further,
if the system is built on Microsoft compatible interfaces, this can help facilitate end-user acceptance and support for the
process modifications. A key component of any purposebuilt LIMS for pharmaceutical manufacturing should also be an environmental
monitoring module that helps improve product quality monitoring and aid compliance by documenting important parts of the process
and the environmental conditions involved. Additional standard functionality should also include dissolution and stability
testing functionality, as well as product and batch management that provides laboratory managers with more control over their
processes and more electronicallygenerated information for audit trail purposes.
The builtin functionalities as described above enable more real-time information sharing between the pharmaceutical sponsor
and its external suppliers, and also enable faster and more streamlined decision making — with an effective LIMS in place
at all points of manufacturing, pharma sponsors have the information they need at each critical point in the production chain.
According to a recent industry report,1 LIMS customers are looking for more "outofthebox" functionality, and expect LIMS to deliver the associated time and cost
savings this specific functionality will bring.
