COLLABORATION: TYPES, TECHNOLOGIES and CONTENT

Pharma R&D is becoming more networked as the pharmaceutical industry evolves to meet the challenges of loss of exclusivity and increased pressure to deliver medicines to serve unmet medical need at lower cost and more quickly. The externalization of R&D requires greater collaboration with many partners including academia, contract research organizations, medical centers, payers, providers, and indeed with each other; furthermore, this extends and can compete with existing internal collaboration needs. In parallel, cybersecurity is growing as an issue. Cybersecurity requires more than ever a focused approach to protecting intellectual property. Privacy regulations, to protect personal information, also create regulatory compliance responsibilities and constraints as to how, why, where and when data can be used and managed.

This increased need to collaborate in a networked, externalized environment requires IT solutions that enable virtual teams and facilitate the sharing of data while protecting intellectual property and data privacy. Some of the key points to be addressed are summarized below.

1. Systems and processes that inter-connect with external partners are essential for real-time use of data and scientific decision making
2. Scientific information systems must be able intentionally to silo data to support a rapidly changing set of intellectual property rights from acquisitions, collaborations and divestitures
3. Collaboration technologies to enable virtual teams, increase effectiveness of R&D project teams and reduce travel cost and time are rapidly evolving
4. Security solutions that enable collaboration while protecting against service disruption and loss of intellectual property are essential
5. Privacy and other regulatory responsibilities create a complex set of compliance obligations – which vary across different geographies – that must be well understood and facilitated by IT.
6. How do we use technology to find collaborators as well as to create, enhance, facilitate collaboration?