Pharmaceutical Technology Europe - February 2012 - (Page 11)

FOCUS Head in the clouds As consumers, we’ve all no doubt heard of cloud computing, but how is it being used in the business world? We interview Subhro Mallik, associate vice president, life sciences, at IT firm Infosys, about how pharma is responding to the cloud computing phenomenon and what more can be done to realise business benefits. Cloud computing has become more prevalent in recent years, but how does it compare with inhouse computing? Although services such as Apple’s iCloud or Amazon’s Web Services will see the mass appeal of cloud computing increase, this will predominantly be on the consumer level rather than an enterprise one. However, irrespective of the vendor, when comparing cloud computing to in-house computing, the main benefit is that the whole ecosystem is managed entirely by the vendor. As a result, pharmaceutical companies can experience the business benefits of an efficient IT infrastructure without having to manage legacy programmes or software updates. Is cloud computing being used to its full potential by pharma companies? Some forward-looking companies have already invested in cloud computing and are realising the benefits. Pfizer, for example, has trialled the use of cloud computing to conduct online clinical research with customers and is now using it to deliver realtime information to its global sales team. In addition, The Pistoia Alliance, an industry body formed by informatics experts from leading pharmaceutical companies including AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis, has successfully piloted cloudbased sequence services that allow members to easily access and share their latest research. However, on the whole, the pharmaceutical industry has yet to harness the full potential that cloud computing has to offer. Perhaps the single biggest opportunity for the pharma sector is cloud computing’s capacity to store vast amounts of data. Security is clearly a major concern, but are there any other challenges that still need to be addressed? Security is certainly a concern for the customers we speak with, but it is not the only barrier to adoption. In fact, a concern we hear about even more frequently than security is whether cloud computing will offer sufficient return on investment (ROI). The key concern is that the ability of cloud computing to scale up and down in accordance with usage could end up putting an uncapped drain on resources. For example, pharmaceutical brands looking to adopt mobile technology for customer communications may find that usage costs are currently quite low compared with the offered rewards because adoption is not too widespread. However, companies are concerned about what will happen if the technology proves to be a success and usage increases. At the moment, there is a lack of effective financial modelling to reassure companies of the business benefits. PTE Read the full interview at: PharmTech.com/Mallik 2 SPECIAL FEATURE 12 INTERVIEW 7 NEWS BITES 13 COLUMN CRUNCH 9 BLOG 15 PEER REVIEW 11 CLOUD COMPUTING 16 TOP TECH http://www.PharmTech.com/Mallik

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pharmaceutical Technology Europe - February 2012

Pharmaceutical Technology Europe - February 2012
Contents
Innovations, drivers and trends in self-injection technology
News Bites, twitter and poll
Blogs Abridged
Focus: Cloud computing
Interview: Nanomedicine advances
Column Crunch: Servier scandal, Biomanufacturing, and more
Evaluating drug impurities
Top Tech

Pharmaceutical Technology Europe - February 2012