2010 01 27 Surveying the ELN Landscape

Surveying the ELN
Landscape
Simon Coles
CTO & Co-Founder, Amphora Research Systems

http://www.amphora-research.com/
My blog: http://elnblog.com 2

Copies of these slides


About Amphora
• Started in ELNs in 1996
• Globally deployed, fully electronic ELN
for Kodak
• Grew from there...
• Now work with large & small companies
• Biotechs, Pharma, Chemicals

Some people we work with


What we do

• Patent Evidence Creation & Preservation
• Make lawyers happy
• Which means you can make scientists
happy


What we do

• Sometimes our stuff is used...
• Standalone
• In conjunction with other “ELN”
products
• With in house systems

Why me?

• We do the Patent Evidence problem
• You still need to make the scientists happy
• So we get a ring-side seat on some of
these problems
• We cross all the different ELN industries

ELN Landscape

• Business drivers - comparing the different
sectors and disciplines
• Build or buy?
• An overview of the solution space
• Patterns of success

Why?

• Why do we care about the ELN landscape?
• Because it helps us all communicate
• Perspective on the lessons learned in other
areas


The “ELN” Word

• Very ambiguous
• Probably best if you didn’t use it
• Say what you mean


What do you mean?

• The term “ELN” means different things to
different people
• Somewhere the scientists will work
• A Patent Evidence system (& long term
record)


What is an ELN?
Corporate aspects
(Records, IP protection, Sharing)
Medicinal Chemistry

Process Chemistry

Molecular Biology

Pharmacology

Etc.

Patent Evidence
• Typically this is a broad, thin layer
• Consistently applied across the whole
company
• Keep it out of the scientiﬁc systems
• Single, well deﬁned place
• Under the control of Custodian

Industry/Company Type

• Life Sciences
• Biotech or Pharma
• Biology Vs Chemistry
• Diverse Chemicals

Biotech Vs Pharma
• Pharma tend to be much more “Mature” organisations
• Everything is done in an Enterprise Way
• Often have a large amount of established code
• Instincts are to buy, but have the resources to build
• Biotech can be much lighter on their feet
• Simpler problems
• Smaller, younger organisations
• Instinct is to build for competitive advantage,
management often to buy

Differences that make a
Difference

• There are 2 key aspects which impact the
character of your ELN implementation
• Regulated Vs Unregulated
• Industry


Regulated or not?
• If you are regulated, chances you are talking
about process automation, enforcement,
and compliance
• This isn’t easy, but it is
• Relatively unambiguous
• Fairly well mapped already

ELNs in a Regulated
Area
• The functions of a “Notebook” will often
be done electronically by something else
• It won’t be called an “Electronic Lab
Notebok”
• Mixing regulated none regulated generally
makes life unbearably exciting


Chemistry Vs Biology

• In Life Sciences, the biggest distinction is
between Chemists and Biologists


Chemistry

• Chemistry is pretty structured
• Buy (or build) them a Chemistry-centric
ELN and let them get on with it
• The selection process is detailed but at
least the work relatively consistently


Sources of Chemistry
ELNs
• If you’re a big pharma, you’re probably
already set
• With varying success - this isn’t easy
• Solutions
• Buy off the shelf
• Build from what you have
• Vendor capture

Sources of Chemistry
• In Biotechs, you probably can’t afford to
build or do vendor capture
• Unless Cheminformatics is a core strength
• So you’re going to have do as much as you
can with off-the-shelf (customised as
needed)
• Nice selection of vendors, have fun!

Biology

• Massive diversity
• Lots of Microsoft Ofﬁce and other “non
ELN” applications
• Best approach is to get out of their way


Biology-speciﬁc ELNs
• There are some biology-speciﬁc ELNs
• Rely on the construction of templates for each
area
• Work well for very structured areas
• Hard to deploy over a large area because of
diversity
• Quickly run into the “You’ve just made Excel
harder to use” problem

Examples

• Biology in Janssen (IQPC Brussels 2007)
• Really good example of in-depth analysis
of process
• 98% approval rate on a project that size
is pretty stunning


Small/Medium
Chemicals
• Lots of point solutions
• Rarely have the money do to anything
other than implement an off-the-shelf
package in a small area
• Relatively simple problem
• Signiﬁcant successes in certain cases

Large Chemicals

• Somewhat boring places you may or may
not have heard of
• But employ 1,000 of scientists and make
most of the fun stuff in your house and car
• e.g. companies like Kodak, BASF, PPG,
Milliken, USG, etc.


Large Chemicals
• Massive diversity
• R&D is typically very close to the customer
• Tight timescales
• Low tolerance for “non-value add”
activities
• Not as much “Chemistry” as you’d think

Large Chemicals

• The ELN project will “Open the can of
worms” in terms of
• The tools people are using
• The records they are creating
• The patent evidence that is generated

General Purpose ELNs

• “You all use the same Paper notebook don’t
you?”
• “So surely you can all use the same
Electronic notebook?”


• You can do it for small numbers of users
and certain styles of work
• Where workﬂow is important
• For large numbers of users
• The diversity in process will kill you
• You end up building an expensive version
of Word & Excel

Functionality

Number of users

Functionality

Possible

Number of users

Functionality

Possible

Possible

Number of users

Functionality

Possible

Doomed to fail
The organisation will frustrate you

Possible

Number of users

Front end tools

• Most organisations will end up providing
different front ends to different users
• Examples
• BMS, Solvay, J&J, BASF, all the other large
companies


Patents
• As a rule, what you need to do from a
Patent perspective is pretty generic
• You might have some speciﬁc needs, but
95% of what you need can be done off the
shelf
• This is one area where you want to stick
with best practice and leave it alone


Records Management

• The Cinderella of ELN projects
• Desperately important
• Clearly something that’s dependent on your
own processes


Build or Buy?
• I don’t believe there’s one true answer here
• There’s a resurgence in components to allow a “Build”
decision
• e.g. Cheminformatics as a service
• Decision will be down to
• Internal capabilities
• Degree of specialisation
• Ultimately all project teams will be constructing an “ELN
System” from components – whether they are called “ELN”s,
or other lower-level parts

Conclusions

• Our original question
• Some thoughts


Our Questions

• What’s the differences that make a
difference?
• What simple things can you do to
increase your chance of success?


Differences

• Life Sciences Vs Everyone else
• In Life Sciences
• Biology Vs Chemistry
• Biotech-ish Vs Pharma-ish
• Regulated or not?

Beware the ELN word

• Say what you mean
• Expect different front ends to support
different work


Changing the world

• Unless you have been specifically charged
with changing the workflow
• Don’t pick the fight
• You’re there to support the science
• Today and in the future

Conclusions

• They’ve probably already got what they
need anyway
• Or a very good idea of what they need
• That’s why they asked for an ELN in the
ﬁrst place


Conclusion
• If you are charged with changing the
workﬂow
• That’s your project, not “ELN” or
whatever
• Try to keep the scope as small as possible
• Size and diversity will kill you

Patent Evidence

• Stick with best practice unless you really
know what you are doing
• One single system


Conclusion

• Chemistry - buy, or build, the best you can
• Biology - get out of their way
• Large chemicals - you’ll never fully
understand everything in detail


Thank You

• Slides will be on our web site tonight
• Any questions?


2010 01 27 Surveying the ELN Landscape

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to 2010 01 27 Surveying the ELN Landscape

Similar to 2010 01 27 Surveying the ELN Landscape (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

2010 01 27 Surveying the ELN Landscape

Editor's Notes