Ryan McBride| Fiercebiotechit
Major tech and services firms would love for pharma to give cloud computing a wholehearted embrace, but the reality is that cloud software and services have trickled into the spending plans of drugmakers as they slowly warm up to web-based systems.
In an article from BioPharm Insight, industry insiders help color in a picture of where cloud has been applied in the pharma industry. Cloud platforms have been highlighted as answers to untangling data problems that pharma companies face in collaborations and work with external groups. Linda Drumright, who heads the clinical trial optimization solutions group at IMS Health, noted that the M&A in pharma has often underscored the difficulty of disparate IT systems from separate companies.
In fact, some pharma buyers have kept operations and IT systems of their acquisition targets intact for years after the deals are sealed. Takeda took this route for years after the $8.8 billion buyout in 2008 of Millennium Pharmaceuticals, which Takeda has recently begun to further integrate into the mother ship. As Drumright told BioPharm Insight, cloud-based systems offer the opportunity to swiftly integrate data from two organizations. Drumright knows all about M&A in the pharma software sector because she joined IMS through the information giant’s buyout of her startup DecisionView last year.
