How to know if your BioPharma company is "data ready" and why it matters

Read more in this excerpt of the article, originally published by Drug Discovery and Development. Shared here by permission.

For years, a stash of ancient scrolls have been sitting in storage, still rolled up. They may have belonged to Julius Caesar’s father-in-law, before a volcano buried them — and Pompeii — in 79 CE. Since the scrolls were discovered in the 1800s, they have been carefully guarded. Researchers periodically pull out one scroll at a time to try to unroll them, but every time they’ve tried, the scroll crumbles into dust.

Now thousands of volunteers are working to “unroll” the scrolls virtually, using x-rays and machine learning to decipher layers of paper and ink. Eventually, we may learn what these scrolls say. It’s a marvelous use of AI, with lessons not just for archaeologists, but also for biopharma. After all, data storage is data storage.

Like archeologists, biopharma companies carefully store old data. Originally, old data was often stored to prove IP claims or meet regulatory requirements. But now that large language models have surpassed humans in parsing large data sets, the hope is that archival data can also yield new meaning.

Read the full article on the Drug Discovery and Development website.

About the author

Stuart Ward is Head of Platform Strategy at IDBS and is responsible for ensuring that IDBS’ software platform and products meet the needs of customers today and in the future. He led the creation and launch of The E-WorkBook GxP Cloud, which was IDBS’ first SaaS product for use in regulated environments. Before that, he was Product Manager for E-WorkBook for four years and worked in IDBS Global Professional Services for five years, responsible for deploying IDBS’ products both from a technical and project management perspective.