Sample Management is Global
Whether you are a virtual biotech or large pharma, you will likely deal with multiple research sites, usually across many countries. CROs (contract research organisations) offer the necessary expertise to accelerate research science and are integral to most R&D companies’ workflows. This global drug discovery outsourcing market is confidently expected to nearly double in size over the next 8-10 years. [1], [2]
Despite this trend, the related need to share sample logistics data on physical sample locations and processing between global partners has not had the same attention. This problem is recognised by CROs as they aim to meticulously track compounds for their multiple customers. BioAscent’s Sylvanie Boucharens, interviewed for Biocompare in 2019, noted that:
“The future of compound management is in the ability to manage data and to collaborate across vendors to create full solutions. Conventionally, processes are very siloed, moving from one supplier to another in a disconnected fashion.” [3]
Data flows within companies have been improved by vendors of lab automation and software offering a range of integrations that make products ‘vendor agnostic’. However, these data flow improvements often don’t apply to sample logistics between companies.
So, how do you track your inventory on a global scale, across multiple partner companies and sites? Can your LIMS keep pace, or are you handicapped by delayed information or simply unable to see how your global partners are progressing?
Titian’s Mosaic sample management software offers biotech, pharma, and CROs inventory management that keeps pace with the cloud-enabled research world:
- Providing global oversight of sample management and logistics – so samples can be requested globally; and if CRO1 doesn’t have it, then CRO2 can supply it
- Maintaining data security and company confidentiality across multiple sites and partners
- Eliminating time lags so inventory data is updated in real-time between sites
- Facilitates shipping and sample tracking across borders as well as companies
Global Oversight
Drug discovery global sample ordering systems are more complicated than most because the inventory available to order needs to remain confidential within the company - but the request for samples and the processing to deliver them may have to be shared across several locations and companies.
Titian’s Mosaic software allows a range of groups which users can be associated that permit different levels of secure access to inventory data. These features combine to give a global solution that works wherever you are in the world, and whichever project, company, collaborator you work for.
Global pharma companies such as Amgen rely on Mosaic for sample ordering. Chrissy Glazier, Research Operations Senior Manager, says “Our Mosaic inventory management platform provides a single point of access for scientists around the world to search and request any research material efficiently and effectively, regardless of which registry contains it."
Many CROs use Mosaic for inventory management, because “We know exactly what we’ve got and how much is left; our customers have got complete transparency on their inventory” explains Dr Mike Piper, CCO, BioAscent. “Whereas if they are not working with us, they will probably have compounds scattered across CROs all around the globe and they won’t really know exactly what is where”. (Read our full BioAscent case study here).
Maintaining Confidentiality while Sharing Information
Confidentiality is essential to drug discovery, especially when it comes to sample inventory, which places greater demands on any sample ordering system. CROs need to guarantee that no customer can see any part of another customer’s inventory while ordering their own samples. Individual companies need to ensure that partner CROs only see the samples they handle and not those held by any other CRO. All parties need to securely maintain an up-to-date overview of which of their samples are held where and what is happening to them.
Titian’s Mosaic software provides several ways of sharing and maintaining a global inventory between different organisations, to suit different requirements from partner companies. This is facilitated by different layers of user permissions and controls, plus ‘inter-organisation connectors’ that include:
- A ‘Partner Portal’ application
- Inventory synchronisation inter-organisation connector
- Tracked shipping inter-organisation connector
- Secure FTP labware import tool
- Access Control Lists
Agios and Evotec provide examples of how these features can be used in practice:
Agios Pharmaceuticals can see up-to-date information on its outsourced samples by allowing partner CROs inside its own instance of Titian’s Mosaic software. Mosaic’s user profiles are used to provide secure and controlled access. The ‘Agios user’ profile can see inventory across all sites and order samples from any. The ‘CRO user’ profile is specific to each CRO’s own section of Agios’ inventory. For Agios the result is similar to a major pharma with sites all over the world, seeing samples at all the different locations – but for Agios these are held at different CROs. Read the full Agios case study here
The CRO Evotec uses several of Mosaic’s inter-organisation connectors with different companies. With Sanofi, Evotec uses Mosaic’s Partner Portal to expose some Mosaic web pages for Sanofi staff to use directly, for example: to search or order from Sanofi inventory held at Evotec. Evotec also employs Access Control List features of Mosaic that make secure working across multiple organisations easier, including:
- Ensuring one customer’s samples are not seen by another by tracking an “Owning Customer” for substances that automatically tags every labware item associated with the substance
- Easy requesting of stock when levels are getting low (facilitated by tracking the owning customer)
- Enforced naming configurations that avoid revealing the identity of other customers
Eliminating Time Lags
Mosaic software can automatically synchronise data across multiple installations of Mosaic at different sites, thus avoiding errors and ensuring near-immediate updates of global inventory.
Inventory updates between systems that rely on file transfers or manual synchronisation are prone to time lags, with the danger that inventory at different sites gets out of step.
Shipping and Sample Tracking
The final pieces of the global sample ordering jigsaw are to expedite the complex process of sample shipments between sites and countries and track sample movements so you know when your valuable samples have arrived at the correct site or if they have been delayed in transit.
Mosaic software has a Shipping application that helps to prepare and manage sample transport off-site. Using it, you can:
- Create packages with samples from multiple orders for efficient delivery to the same site. Packages can match the physical container sizes and quantity
- Create, track, and email supporting documentation such as hazard declarations
- Log courier details, which can be printed for the shipping department and emailed to the recipient site
- Show the shipment's pending arrival and, when unpacked, automatically receive the contents into inventory
Importantly, Mosaic can enforce geographical restrictions on sending controlled substances. The international shipping of controlled substances such as narcotics, psychotropic drugs, and chemical weapons, has extremely complex regulations and severe penalties for infringement.
Mosaic can also restrict the transfer of samples to internal sites or to particular recipients, such as particular projects or partner collaborators. These can even have calendar dates associated with them to enforce legal agreements.
Is Your LIMS Supporting You?
No matter whether your partner research groups are at universities, CROs, charitable foundations, government institutions, or other pharma/biotech companies; close cooperation across distributed sites is increasingly in demand – along with shared inventory management. It is now essential to research that this way of working is reliably supported by your sample logistics and tracking.
Today’s sample management teams need the support of LIMS software that can provide up-to-date global oversight while maintaining data security and company confidentiality across multiple sites and partners. These systems must marry inventory management and logistics and be able to facilitate shipping samples in line with complex international regulations.
References:
- https://www.precedenceresearch.com/drug-discovery-outsourcing-market
- https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/drug-discovery-outsourcing-market
- Ellis, J. New trends in compound management, Biocompare, 2019
https://www.biocompare.com/Editorial-Articles/359206-New-Trends-in-Compound-Management/ - BioAscent case study: Bold growth at BioAscent
- Agios case study: Biotech sample management in an age of change
