Vectura

Vectura Fertin Pharma works for lung diseases or delivery of compounds via the airways.

Some of the challenges that we faced with the laboratories are data and data management.

Having used the paper system for well over a couple of years, it was really exciting to have something new coming into the labs, hopefully going to make something that was quite laborious a very efficient, and less manual process.

We chose IDBS because it was very clear that the cloud-based systems – the SaaS systems – were kept updated more frequently.

For us, the most important thing during an update is to make sure that the lab downtime is at a minimum: IDBS doing part of the validation and then us taking over allows us to spend fewer resources on it. And to speed up the process.

The way that we rolled out the project was in phased stages. And that seems to work quite well. So that we’ve got everybody integrated into the system at the right time for them.

We had template building training; we had the initial people that were going to be using the system get the training. We were then able to tailor-make a training session with IDBS – to give to all of our end users, as a first instance.

When reporting our data now, we can solely use E-WorkBook. It’s just one software, so using the digital scanners that we have and scanning in all the barcodes that we’ve been able to label all our equipment and our materials with, and then pulling the information through automatically from Inventory, and it telling you if it’s ready for use immediately is really, really great.

For me, it’s the audit perspective, the regulatory perspective, the compliance side of things; it adds to the advantage. That we’re 25-30% more efficient, in terms of time, which adds up over a working day. So, it may mean that if you’ve been able to test five things in one day, then you can test eight. It’s just that bit slicker, really.

We have been learning as we’re going along, as the team that is doing this. And that’s often meant training, support tickets and speaking with customer support managers regularly. Every step of the way, IDBS has been there to support us, which has been great. And what it’s allowed us to do is build up that internal expertise a lot quicker than if we didn’t have that support.

I think this is only the start of where we’re going. We’ve gone electronic, we’ve made that big push to start with. Now, there’s no turning back. This is only one direction.

All of the big processes that we do in the labs are done via E-WorkBook. And you know, things like the flexibility of work can only happen via E-WorkBook, whether that’s flexibility within a template or flexibility on where someone’s doing the work from. Yes, none of that could happen without E-WorkBook.

If we went back to paper now, I think a lot of people wouldn’t be very happy about it.