Why are more and more pharmaceutical companies storing their lab notebooks electronically?

Healthcare, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies are, by nature, highly competitive. The speed at which new products are brought to market impacts directly on income and company growth.

Despite the large amount of funding which is invested in research and development, many companies still use the antiquated method of paper lab books to record details relating to each new product. One of the major issues of using this method is the finding and sharing of information contained in the notebooks. For example, many large pharmaceutical companies are multinational and the ability to access critical product information from any location could save a substantial amount of money, as duplicated work would be reduced. Scientists also spend many hours trying to locate a particular piece of information in a lab book – time which would be more profitably spent analyzing the (what should be) immediately available data and coming up with new products.

The answer to this is to store the lab books electronically. When a notebook has been completed, it should be scanned and indexed and made available to users via a network. Access can be strictly controlled and only those with the relevant level of rights would be able to view the documents but it would facilitate the sharing of information within the books right across the world. For additional security, there is also an ‘Event History’ audit tool which tracks all actions in the system by user, date, time and action taken.

The IPC Group have extensive experience in the electronic conversion of lab books and provide regular services for clients in their scanning bureau.

For further information and advice call  reephone 08081 45 46 47.