Unique characteristics of information services in biopharma
Jinfo Blog

By Amy Burns

Abstract

Get a flavour of the discussions from our recent industry roundtable for information professionals in biopharma.

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Who's your champion?

On 23 August, Jinfo hosted an industry-focused roundtable for the biopharma industry as part of a new offering in Community.  

A small group of information services professionals joined a lively discussion on trends and best practices, building off Jinfo's benchmarking research and examining how the data applies to biopharma companies.

We looked at the unique characteristics of the biopharma participants in the benchmarking, compared with the full dataset in terms of structure, staffing size, services and target customers.

Discussion highlights included:

Reporting structure

Where within the organisation does the information department report, and why does it matter? Although our benchmarking research found that most biopharma companies tend to have information services reporting into Research and Development (R&D), all of the companies represented in our discussion group actually report elsewhere - legal, commercial operations and IT.

Interestingly, these reporting relationships are all relatively new (within 3 years) and came as a result of merger, acquisition or divestiture. 

Have a champion

This observation led to the next important highlight: successful information teams have a champion (or several), who understand what the information services team does.

Discussion around the value of a champion was passionate. Participants agreed that a champion can: 

• Express the value you provide to the organisation
• Articulate the impact you make to your customers 
• Help you develop a clear plan for growth, to the benefit of the business.

One of the roundtable attendees commented "how refreshing a change in structure can be to the team". Reorgs can break down old expectations and boundaries. Embrace the change as an opportunity to strengthen your team environment, grow your business and find new opportunities to showcase your information skills.

Future industry roundtables

Future industry roundtables will dig into the benchmarking data as they relate to:

• Manufacturing: 27th September 2017
• Professional services: 25th October 2017

Community sessions are open to Jinfo customers with the Community option on their accounts. To learn more about these sessions and register, please email me at amy.burns@jinfo.com, or complete the online query form. A limited number of seats are available for prospects who want a taster before they commit.

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