Bayer HealthCare to Standardize on the Documentum Enterprise Content Management Platform
At Momentum, the Documentum User Conference, Documentum, the leading provider of enterprise content management and a division of EMC Corporation, announced that Bayer HealthCare AG, a subgroup of Bayer AG and one of the world’s leading companies in the health care and medical products industry, has standardized on the Documentum Enterprise Content Management (ECM) platform to intelligently and efficiently manage its content and meet strict compliance regulations and standards.
A longstanding Documentum customer, Bayer HealthCare employs more than 34,000 employees around the world and comprises five divisions: Animal Health, Biological Products, Consumer Care, Diagnostics and Pharmaceuticals. The company is renowned for more than 100 years of medical innovation and does business in more than 120 countries.
In 1995 Bayer AG decided to standardize on Documentum. Since then, Bayer company divisions, such as Bayer HealthCare, have implemented additional Documentum products and have continually developed new applications based on the Documentum platform. “The strategic importance of Documentum as a platform for our worldwide document management in research and development is growing,” says Dr. Andreas Staudt, Director of the Proprietary Information and Research Support department within Global Pharmaceutical Research.
Using the Documentum platform, Bayer HealthCare and Documentum partner, Phoenix Systems Integration, designed an electronic archiving system called EASY, which replaced a legacy system. All types of documents required for research and product development are available within a “living repository” including both internal information (intellectual property) and public material or reports. For example, in order to introduce new drugs the company is obligated to submit reports and literature, which in the past would have filled a vast paper archive. Today, the information is available online to employees around the world using a Documentum-based security structure with hierarchical access.
Quality and legal requirements have been considered from system design through roll-out in order to ensure compliance with pertinent guidelines, including stringent Food & Drug Administration requirements, and to provide the organization with a modern and validated system. All modifications go through a special approval procedure. These developments allow internal and external customers to access information that is tailored to their requirements. “Content access speed has increased by a factor of 50-100 in comparison to the legacy system, without compromising data security,” adds Dr. Lars Johannsen, Manager of Reports System for Global Pharmaceutical Research and Development.
The process of retrieving and compiling data for review, approval and submission to regulatory agencies was a time-consuming, costly and manual process that could often take weeks to complete. Downloading the vast amounts of data from the old TIFF archive resulted in long waiting periods. Today, Bayer employees and external bodies such as regulatory agencies or Bayer partners can access electronic documents that have been released for their inspection. Compilation and delivery of the information has gone from weeks to minutes.
In addition, Bayer HealthCare Research scientists have online access to a wealth of information regarding the latest research and development results. Meeting minutes, research bulletins and other research documents are stored in a Documentum repository. All applications and data can be accessed via the Bayer HealthCare intranet. The user interface is adapted to the Bayer design, so the users do not even notice that they are working with Documentum. “The look and feel of the applications makes sure that all users feel comfortable when using new or complex systems,” says Dr. Johannsen.
“Documentum continues to be the solution of choice for global leaders in life sciences, such as Bayer, who look to increase their competitive advantage and comply with evolving regulatory and compliance requirements,” said Dave DeWalt, president of the Documentum division of EMC. “We are extremely pleased to be selected as the global standard for all of Bayer HealthCare’s content management needs, and we look forward to a long and successful relationship.”
About Bayer HealthCare
Bayer HealthCare, a subgroup of Bayer AG with annual sales of approx. EUR 8.9 billion in 2003, is one of the world’s leading, innovative companies in the health care and medical products industry. Bayer HealthCare combines the global activities of the Animal Health, Biological Products, Consumer Care, Diagnostics and Pharmaceuticals divisions. More than 34,000 employees work for Bayer HealthCare worldwide. For more information on BayerHealthCare, visit: http://www.bayerhealthcare.com
About Documentum
Documentum, a division of EMC Corporation, provides enterprise content management (ECM) solutions that enable organizations to unite teams, content and associated business processes. Documentum’s integrated set of content, compliance and collaboration solutions support the way people work, from initial discussion and planning through design, production, marketing, sales, service and corporate administration. With a single platform, Documentum enables people to collaboratively create, manage, deliver and archive the content that drives business operations, from documents and discussions to email, Web pages, records and rich media. The Documentum platform makes it possible for companies to distribute all of this content in multiple languages, across internal and external systems, applications and user communities. As a result, Documentum’s customers, which include thousands of the world’s most successful organizations, harness corporate knowledge, accelerate time to market, increase customer satisfaction, enhance supply chain efficiencies and reduce operating costs, improving their overall competitive advantage. For more information, visit Documentum on the Web at www.documentum.com
