Connect 2014: Highlights and Key Talking Points

Another year, another fantastic conference. Connect 2014 took place in London last week and was a truly international event, attracting more of our clients, industry speakers and R&D experts from around the world than ever before. It was also an opportunity to celebrate 25 years of IDBS’ innovation and success.

Across the myriad of engaging presentations and interactive sessions, central to almost every discussion was the role of data. We are surrounded by more data than ever before – and the amount of technical data is doubling annually. Finding a way to distil this data and make sure that users can access it anytime, anywhere, will be pivotal to successful R&D.

Externalization was another hot topic. We enjoyed a particularly energizing, thought-provoking session from Professor Eddie Obeng from Pentacle Business School on unlocking more productive external collaboration. Professor Dr Jochen Maas enthused on the efficacy of external partnerships based on his work at Sanofi Deutschland. He also touched on the need for more collaboration between academia and industry. This was a point later echoed by Dr Gerald Batist, Director of the Segal Cancer Centre at the Jewish General Hospital. Could this be the answer to tackling pharma’s continued R&D productivity decline?

Attendees and speakers shared insights on what the ‘lab of the future’ might look like – driven by the gradual move towards cloud and using the web for better collaboration and sharing. Neil Kipling, Founder and CEO of IDBS, highlighted the significance of Millenials and Gen Z entering the workplace. These digital natives will fundamentally disrupt the world of work, and expectations for modern R&D technology continue to grow. IDBS hopes to lead the way in helping to meet this evolving challenge, providing the backbone through which R&D is enabled and transformed.

The conference also gave us the chance to show off some significant product developments, with Dr Scott Weiss demonstrating how to create an interactive canvas on E-WorkBook. Andy Vines and Jeff Tishler also discussed ActivityBase updates for 2014 and beyond. Clients were able to share their own success stories, and in breakout sessions learn about getting the most out of our solutions.

Thanks again to the speakers and attendees who joined us this year, and for those who missed it you can find some highlights of the event here. Keep an eye out for further updates from the show in the next few weeks.