Technological survey on LIMS and ELN in Life Sciences - Biogenouest
Technological survey on LIMS and ELN in Life Sciences - Biogenouest
Technological survey on LIMS and ELN in Life Sciences - Biogenouest
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2 -‐ Quality system The <str<strong>on</strong>g>survey</str<strong>on</strong>g> shows that for the <strong>Life</strong> Science research based organizati<strong>on</strong>s (BiotechSMEs, technological core facilities <strong>and</strong> academic laboratories), the awareness levelfor <strong>LIMS</strong>/<strong>ELN</strong> is rather low. The majority already has <strong>in</strong> place or will implementshortly a quality strategy, despite the fact that the segment <str<strong>on</strong>g>survey</str<strong>on</strong>g>ed has differentunderst<strong>and</strong><strong>in</strong>g of quality <strong>and</strong> is not at the same level. Academic laboratories <strong>and</strong>technological core facilities have implemented a quality system (60%), but <strong>on</strong>ly 30%have certificati<strong>on</strong>s. SMEs are more advanced with a high ISO compliant proporti<strong>on</strong>(70%).The motivati<strong>on</strong> to implement a quality strategy is clearly different between thesegments. While academic laboratories <strong>and</strong> technological core facilities follow astrategy focused <strong>on</strong> <strong>in</strong>ternal needs, SMEs are implement<strong>in</strong>g tools <strong>in</strong> resp<strong>on</strong>se toexternal c<strong>on</strong>stra<strong>in</strong>ts.3 -‐ <strong>LIMS</strong>/<strong>ELN</strong> <strong>LIMS</strong>/<strong>ELN</strong> are <strong>in</strong> the same situati<strong>on</strong> as software publishers 20 years ago, when<strong>in</strong>troduc<strong>in</strong>g the Enterprise Resource Plann<strong>in</strong>g (ERP) soluti<strong>on</strong>s such as SAP, Oracle,Bus<strong>in</strong>ess Object, etc. ERP was <strong>in</strong>itially developed for the manufactur<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>dustry <strong>and</strong>then evolved <strong>in</strong>to br<strong>in</strong>g<strong>in</strong>g the decisi<strong>on</strong> mak<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>formati<strong>on</strong> from all the departments<strong>in</strong> a company <strong>in</strong> <strong>on</strong>e s<strong>in</strong>gle place, <strong>in</strong> order to <strong>in</strong>crease efficiency, productivity <strong>and</strong>profit. The adopti<strong>on</strong> of such soluti<strong>on</strong>s faced the same issues the <strong>LIMS</strong> & <strong>ELN</strong> iscurrently fac<strong>in</strong>g: high cost, complexity <strong>and</strong> time c<strong>on</strong>sum<strong>in</strong>g.Another obstacle l<strong>in</strong>ked to <strong>LIMS</strong>/<strong>ELN</strong> deployment is the fact that it is much moredifficult to establish procedures <strong>in</strong> R&D than <strong>in</strong> other departments such asproducti<strong>on</strong>, market<strong>in</strong>g, sales or account<strong>in</strong>g.The first implementati<strong>on</strong> of <strong>ELN</strong> & <strong>LIMS</strong> started <strong>in</strong> 1990 for <strong>LIMS</strong> <strong>and</strong> 10 years laterfor <strong>ELN</strong> <strong>in</strong> the Chemical <strong>and</strong> Pharma <strong>in</strong>dustry. Those companies had the <strong>in</strong>ternalskills <strong>in</strong>-house to lead the successful implementati<strong>on</strong> of data management soluti<strong>on</strong>s.Nowadays, the Pharma <strong>in</strong>dustry spends about 20% of IT budgets for <strong>ELN</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>LIMS</strong>.As described <strong>in</strong> this report, there are very few soluti<strong>on</strong>s currently available for SMEs<strong>and</strong> academics. To face the limited number of soluti<strong>on</strong>s as well as the n<strong>on</strong>-satisfy<strong>in</strong>gcommercial offer, a community of open source providers has emerged s<strong>in</strong>ce 2005.These communities are small <strong>and</strong> do not ensure technical upgrades of availablesoluti<strong>on</strong>s over time.The unavailability of adapted soluti<strong>on</strong>s (from either commercial or open sourceproviders) led to the development of <strong>in</strong>-house soluti<strong>on</strong> by <strong>in</strong>ternal resources.Develop<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>-house customized tools <strong>in</strong>stead of adopt<strong>in</strong>g commercial soluti<strong>on</strong>s (tooexpensive <strong>and</strong> time c<strong>on</strong>sum<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> early deployment) is a first step of maturity but the<strong>in</strong>-house soluti<strong>on</strong>s are not guaranteed to be l<strong>on</strong>g last<strong>in</strong>g over the years.Users can be divided <strong>in</strong> 3 communities:- Early Adopters & Visi<strong>on</strong>aries- Early majority- Late Majority & LaggardsS<strong>in</strong>ce commercial soluti<strong>on</strong>s are not suited to the early adopters’ needs, they developtheir own tools <strong>and</strong> h<strong>and</strong>le the ma<strong>in</strong>tenance themselves. As a result there is nocommercial reference that can be implemented by the rest of community (early <strong>and</strong>late majorities) expect<strong>in</strong>g well-established <strong>LIMS</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>ELN</strong> soluti<strong>on</strong>s. Therefore, thema<strong>in</strong>stream adopti<strong>on</strong> is delayed.31