March 12, 2007
LabVantage Solutions
Jim Aurelio
President & CEO of LabVantage
How has your company adapted and responded to the changing economic climate in the past five years when so many others companies did not?
Adopting our highly celebrated practice of “One team. One vision. World class customer service,” LabVantage has been committing to providing solutions that help our customers achieve both their business and scientific needs. LabVantage delivers rich, functional solutions, which include software, consulting, implementation services, and follow-on customer support that is tailored to our customers’ needs to help them increase laboratory productivity and meet their business objectives. Our solutions approach and strong commitment to service, leveraging our global resources, have enabled us to adeptly respond to the changing economic climate.
What is your vision for the future of the life sciences market over the next several years?
Although translational research has been and will continue to be a key driver in the life sciences market, it is the integration of data and information spanning discovery, development, and manufacturing that will allow companies to bring products to market in a more timely and cost-effective manner.
All areas of research, development, and manufacturing will benefit from the knowledge gained by analyzing data across all of these disciplines. To facilitate that integration, I believe we will see more biopharmaceutical companies take an enterprise informatics approach. Moreover, I have learned from many failed big-bang projects that this enterprise informatics approach will be implemented module-by-module or solution-by-solution, leveraging configurable-off-the-shelf applications that can be tailored to meet their specific needs.
What products and services does your company provide and what special capabilities do they offer the life sciences market?
LabVantage's Sapphire is a zero footprint, thin-client configurable-off-the-shelf (COTS) laboratory information management suite (LIMS). The Sapphire Suite consolidates robust functionality typically found in multiple laboratory systems into one product platform across the global enterprise:
- Enterprise-wide information management and tracking for any laboratory item;
- Intuitive data entry from virtually any Internet or Intranet access device and easy integration to third-party instruments and applications;
- Workflow design and process automation through graphical user interfaces; and
- Compliance with internal standards and government regulations through programming rules and electronic signatures.
Leveraging domain experts that possess industry best practices, we deliver our Sapphire solutions for laboratories conducting research, development, biobanking, and quality management across various scientific or disease disciplines or products, depending on the unique needs of the customer.
Partnerships are an effective way to track life science advances and ensure that your company delivers timely products and services. Which life sciences companies or organizations have you partnered with or invested in and why?
LabVantage takes a partner approach when developing software solutions. By working with leading companies, we believe that we are able to address the unique challenges of life sciences organizations. As examples, LabVantage partnered with:
- Millennium Pharmaceuticals, the original developers of the Spectrum biorepository management tool, to develop the Sapphire BioBanking Solution;
- A leading pharmaceutical company and a consumer products giant to enhance our Sapphire Stability Module;
- The Multiple Myeloma Research Consortium to develop our new Ad-Hoc Query Tool; and
- A large pharmaceutical company to extend Sapphire’s capabilities in clinical data and protocol management.
Through this partnership approach, LabVantage captures critical information on customer needs to develop cost-effective solutions that address the requirements of customers throughout the life sciences industry.
What are your most exciting products and initiatives in development, and how will they improve life science research?
Recognizing that translational research will be a key driver behind the life sciences product development engine, LabVantage has been extending Sapphire’s capabilities to enable clinical development organizations to more easily capture clinical data, as well as manage and execute clinical protocols. We have already developed our Sapphire BioBanking Solution, which provides enterprise data and location management, chain of custody tracking, and logistics for all subjects and biospecimens at the heart of translational research. Our Ad-Hoc Query Tool, which will be released in February 2007, serves as the portal for researchers and clinicians to access and analyze this data. With our built-in Evergreen configuration tools, Sapphire is able to provide a tailored, seamless enterprise informatics solution to help life sciences organizations realize the promise of translational research.
Where do you see your company in five years?
Successful life sciences organizations can no longer depend on one-dimensional systems. LabVantage set a strategic vision for Sapphire as a solution that addresses an organization's IT needs for a single thin-client application; a solution that adequately meets business requirements for enterprise laboratory information management. Today, a zero-footprint and configurable-off-the shelf LIMS, Sapphire takes enterprises beyond the world of traditional LIMS by consolidating additional functionality typically found in multiple laboratory systems into one product platform across the global enterprise. LabVantage has and will continue to execute on that vision to consolidate LIMS, experimental design, electronic laboratory notebook, and clinical data management so that Sapphire will remain the dominant thin-client enterprise informatics solution for life science organizations.