Testing for safety and quality is central to the creation of reliable data. Businesses across multiple industries choose to work with a contract lab instead of bringing the laboratory testing in-house. Utilizing the services of contract testing laboratories can supply a host of benefits, especially to startups or small companies, but also larger enterprise operations that may not have the core competency to conduct certain tests. [Read More]

Your manufacturing execution system (MES) can be a valuable part of your organization’s data management plan—if you are using it to its full potential. Is your MES integrated with your laboratory information management system (LIMS) or your enterprise resource planning (ERP) software? If you are operating in the life sciences industry, has your MES been validated for its intended use? If you haven’t thought about your MES as a vital part of your broader organization, you’re not alone. In this blog post, we’ll share why you should consider bringing your MES more fully into your informatics strategy. But first, a little history. [Read More]

Download this new white paper from Astrix that explores the emerging tech that’s driving life sciences forward.  Underlying successful digital transformations, is the critical need for R&D organizations to leverage information assets to enable enhanced insights, decision making, and process automation. While companies are at different starting points, there are several in common approaches to a digital transformation. [Read More]

Lab research, which is crucial for scientific advancement and innovation, has always relied on note-taking to keep track of experiments, observations, and results. Unfortunately, traditional paper notebooks pose several problems for researchers, including the risk of loss or damage, logistical issues, and difficulty in structuring the data for analysis. Some organizations use an Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN) point solution, however, these also have their own limitations, such as a lack of integration with other lab systems, challenges in data sharing and management, and the need for manual data entry. [Read More]

Most American consumers are unaware of the rigorous testing processes that take place before a new drug hits the market. Highly effective and reliable testing is essential for new pharmaceutical products that can help improve health conditions and life quality to reach the end patient. The right Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) can help a laboratory improve all of its operations and efficiencies, including the highly-detailed process of pharmaceutical testing. [Read More]

The food and beverage industry is a highly regulated industry that requires strict quality control measures to ensure the safety and quality of products. This is where Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) come into play. LIMS is a software-based solution that helps food and beverage companies manage their laboratory data, automate their workflows, and ensure compliance with industry regulations. In this blog post, we will discuss the importance of LIMS in the food and beverage industry and how it can help companies streamline their operations and improve their overall product quality. [Read More]

Clinisys today announced that it has acquired Promium, a Bothell, Washington-based, leading provider of laboratory information management systems dedicated to supporting environmental, water, wastewater and other analytical testing laboratories that protect health and safety. [Read More]

Introducing a laboratory information management system (LIMS) can positively impact multiple aspects of operations for food and beverage laboratories. A well-designed LIMS, like the ELab LIMS from LabLynx, allows labs to streamline processes, boost productivity, ensure traceability, and generate accurate reports, all while complying with strict industry regulations. [Read More]

Defining, collecting, and connecting business and technical metadata is a multifaceted and tedious process. Astrix recently hosted a roundtable discussion for senior executives of several leading pharmaceutical and biotech companies. In this first of two articles, we share their perspectives and practices for enhancing their organizations’ use of critical information via the production of data fabric. [Read More]

While the management of digitally created data and information is largely in the scope of regulators, standards organizations, and company management these days, the non-trivial surplus of analog data and information (e.g., printed tables, field notebooks, photographs, drawings, maps, etc.) and what to do with it still weighs upon on the research community. Older data has long had uses in retrospective and current research, yet few large-scale solutions for making this analog data and information more FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) have been developed. Kelly et al. emphasize this in their 2022 research published in the Data Science Journal and address what they consider should be a set of best practices to managing historic analog data and information. After proving background history on the concerns surrounding older analog data, the authors discuss ways that older analog data is currently and can be used, and they highlight the challenges that come with attempting to reuse such data. They then provide some possible paths forward with a best practice approach, before concluding that "[b]est practices (including selection of metadata schema, developing a data dictionary, describing data collection methods) and policies developed to govern the preservation and dissemination of digital data could serve as an example for developments concerning analog data."