Informatics
mature, having transitioned to a current phase of ongoing change, reducing overall disruption while still delivering incremental improvements. But it was with much pain that we reached this point. Implementing informatics systems that were based on rapidly evolving IT meant mistakes and detours occurred, so it is paramount that we reduce or avoid similar issues in biologics drug discovery now that the underlying technologies are more mature. Moreover, commercial providers of scien- tific informatics systems were themselves at early stages of development, so many drug discovery companies opted to write their own systems since full commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) systems did not exist. That is not the case today. But is this really an issue? If IT is mature and
COTS systems are available, won’t biologics drug discovery simply adopt it efficiently, perhaps hav- ing already done so? In our experience, implemen- tation of a professional grade, COTS, scientifical- ly-aware informatics system in biologics drug dis- covery remains an issue. Data that would other- wise go into an ELN at a small molecule company is still often captured in paper lab notebooks and/or in non-scientific, general-purpose tools such as Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint and SharePoint. We know from small molecule drug discovery that there are better options. Small molecule discovery had no choice as ELNs were not available pre-21st century. But that is not the case now, so why are there still biologics compa- nies using a paper/Excel solution? Clearly there are many factors. When a new start-up emerges, there is a lot to do, and activities and resources need to be carefully prioritised. Budgets are often tight and early-stage personnel tend to be focused on science and scientific technology, not informa- tion technology. It is easy to imagine that the implementation of an ELN, and other scientific IT infrastructure, is seen as something that can wait. The very future of a start-up company is often not assured, so putting a lot of energy into a sophisti- cated IT environment can seem premature. Moreover, there is a history in the drug discovery industry that chemists have generally been more willing to adopt commercial software than biolo- gists. This may be because at the time that IT was evolving rapidly, with general access to personal computers, the dominant software element in biol- ogy was open-source bioinformatics software. That legacy remains today, but in our experience is much milder and less differentiating between younger chemists and biologists. So while waiting to implement a scientific infor- matics system might appear to make sense, doing
Drug Discovery World Spring 2018
so is a critical and potentially very costly mistake. Not having such a system in place undermines the effectiveness of scientists at the very time this is most critical, as decisions are informed by incom- plete data, and intellectual property protection is at risk. Additionally, this makes the eventual implementation ever more challenging, as non- standardised practices become implemented, more employees are brought on board, and an increas- ing body of data is created without a proper data management system in place. An informatics sys- tem implemented early can easily grow with the organisation, rather than seeming to disrupt it later, by imposing much-needed standardisation of processes and digitisation of legacy data from unstructured documents. For scientific companies whose entire value is in their intellectual property, not having systems to secure, audit and track that information can expose the entire enterprise to unnecessary risk.
Key IT trends Awareness of IT trends is important for under- standing needs both now and in the future to sup- port an informatics system. Even though the over- all IT landscape is more mature and stable than in pre-21st century times, concerns about potential disruptions and future-proofing needs can delay informatics adoption decisions due to ‘paralysis by analysis’. Personal access to technology and IT mobility has matured to a point where most researchers and other drug discovery personnel are equipped with a laptop computer and either com- pany-provided or personal smart phone that they use as part of their work life. While some data may be stored on the laptop itself, systems-of-record data storage and much of the daily-used project data is on company-managed servers or as part of cloud-hosted software-as-a-service (SaaS) environ- ments. This configuration has been relatively stable for a few years, and will probably remain so for the next few years, given that currently there appears to be no major disruptive technologies in the con- sumer space which could influence business per- sonal computing. Mobile computing platforms such as tablet computers,
including 2-in-1
laptop/tablet hybrids, have not emerged as a dom- inant item of personal technology over laptop com- puters, as was once anticipated. The business mar- ket seems to have followed suit. Between low- weight laptops with optional touchscreens and smartphones getting larger, tablets have been squeezed out. The entrenched business operating systems and software (eg Microsoft Windows and Office apps) probably played a major role as these
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