March 30, 2018 | Posted by Team in News |
Science Exchange shortlisted in two categories – Best New Procurement Consultancy Project and Best P2P Specialist Provider
PALO ALTO, CA, March 30, 2018 – Science Exchange, the world’s leading and most secure enterprise platform for outsourced research and development (R&D) services, today announced it has been named a finalist in two categories for the esteemed World Procurement Awards, the most sought-after and recognized accolade in procurement, run by Procurement Leaders. Alongside industry leaders like Microsoft, Coupa, IBM, and KPMG, Science Exchange is on the shortlist for two awards: Best New Procurement Consultancy Project, with pharmaceutical client GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Consumer Health, and Best Procure-to-Pay (P2P) Specialist Provider.
Science Exchange was recognized for its P2P platform, which empowered procurement teams and increased R&D operational efficiency at GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Health (GSK-CH) and another major global pharmaceutical client with rapid access to innovation through outsourced R&D.
“We are honored to be recognized once again by Procurement Leaders for the work we are doing with our clients to help accelerate breakthrough discoveries,” said Dr. Elizabeth Iorns, Ph.D., CEO and Co-Founder of Science Exchange. “Outsourcing with scientific service providers is crucial for increasing R&D efficiency, but finding and qualifying providers can be a time-consuming process. Our platform accelerates scientific breakthroughs by connecting researchers to thousands of scientific services from a network of thoroughly vetted providers.”
The winners of the awards will be announced on May 17, 2018 at the World Procurement Awards Ceremony in London, England. To find out more and see a list of all the finalists, visit the website at www.worldprocurementawards.com.
Best New Procurement Consultancy Project
In the category Best New Procurement Consultancy Project, GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Health (GSK-CH) implemented Science Exchange to increase the productivity of their R&D operations. Through the Science Exchange platform, GSK-CH researchers gained instant access to the 2,500+ outsourced service providers on the Science Exchange network, including niche and innovative technologies. Science Exchange was able to broaden the GSK-CH R&D organization’s geographical reach, capitalize on local demand, help spur innovation, and advance their timelines to bring products to market faster. Some of the results included an 11% increase in GSK-CH’s access to innovative providers (YTD) and 44 new niche providers selected by GSK-CH during scouting efforts this year.
Best P2P Specialist Provider In the category Best P2P Specialist Provider, a leading global pharmaceutical company explored the potential to increase their R&D productivity by using the Science Exchange technology platform to improve its outsourcing processes. Instead of spending hours a day exploring service providers, the scientists logged into Science Exchange and quickly reviewed service provider satisfaction ratings, secured competitive quotes, and selected a supplier to meet their research needs. After one year of using Science Exchange, this global pharmaceutical company’s preclinical services group reported that scientists saved 1,300 hours, the legal and procurement teams saved 2,730 hours, and the combined time-savings translated to hundreds of thousands of dollars in cost savings.
About World Procurement Awards The World Procurement Awards, in association with SAP Ariba, are the most celebrated and sought-after awards in procurement, representing the best projects, people and organizations across the world. They reward the collective efforts of individuals and teams and are an affirmation of the hard work, innovation and dedication of those at the forefront of this dynamic global profession. This year saw a record number of entries from some of the most influential companies across 36 countries for the 12th annual awards. The judges were impressed with the sheer quality of this year’s submissions, commenting that the bar had once again been raised, with innovation at the heart of each project as teams across the globe work hard to position themselves as valuable business partners.
Learn more about how Science Exchange can help your organization accelerate innovation through outsourced R&D — request a demo of our platform today.
February 12, 2018 | Posted by Team in News |
Palo Alto, CA – February 12, 2018 — Science Exchange, the world’s leading and most secure enterprise platform for outsourced research and development (R&D), today announced a strategic collaboration with Venture Catalyst, a unit within the Technology Management and Corporate Relations division of the UC Davis Office of Research which supports the development of new ventures fueled by university research.
Science Exchange will provide entrepreneurs and startups participating in the Venture Catalyst Smart Toolkit for Accelerated Research Translation (START™) Program immediate access to the private R&D marketplace with dedicated PhD-level sourcing support around the clock and a special contracting structure to accelerate their research and development projects.
“The Science Exchange platform solves the challenges of R&D outsourcing by providing scientists with on-demand access to a diverse network of prequalified external providers under a single relationship while also providing sourcing departments with more information and control over their outsourcing spending,” said Elizabeth Iorns, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of Science Exchange. “We are thrilled to be collaborating with Venture Catalyst to offer a customized R&D marketplace and help its portfolio of companies complete their research and clinical projects more quickly and efficiently. It’s clear that Venture Catalyst is supporting companies with extremely promising technologies in development, and we’re honored to help get their discoveries to market faster.”
With this collaboration, Science Exchange will support client-specific governance, approval workflows, and preferred vendors, all the while enabling instant access to research services and custom products from 2,500 providers in over 6,000 research areas. To help external service providers minimize the risk frequently associated with outsourcing, Science Exchange’s guarantee ensures complete protection of data, assets and performance of agreed-upon services, all backed by the best-in-class, SOC 2-compliant information technology security infrastructure. Science Exchange’s ISO 9001-certified quality assurance system and dedicated regulatory compliance team also support regulated outsourced work.
Venture Catalyst is the latest innovation and startup support organization to choose to partner with Science Exchange. They now join more than 30 enterprise organizations including most of the top 20 biopharma companies that use Science Exchange to more efficiently manage outsourced R&D.
“Science Exchange offers a unique platform for our startups to connect with a broad network of qualified scientific providers,” said Dushyant Pathak, Associate Vice Chancellor of Research and Executive Director of Venture Catalyst at UC Davis. “We anticipate that working with Science Exchange through the START Program will enable us to commercially advance the discoveries made by Venture Catalyst-supported startups and early-stage companies, in areas as diverse as biomedical and life sciences, agriculture and animal health, and physical sciences and engineering.”
About Venture Catalyst
Venture Catalyst furthers the University’s educational, research and public mission by supporting UC Davis students, faculty and researchers in translating science, engineering and innovative research through well-resourced startups, into societal impact. Venture Catalyst engages collaboratively with internal and external drivers of innovation and works closely with the University’s Institute for Innovation & Entrepreneurship. In addition to its Smart Toolkit for Accelerated Research Translation (START™) program, Science Translation and Innovative Research (STAIR™) Proof-of-Concept grants, Venture Catalyst supports a network of regional technology startup incubators through its Distributed Research Incubation & Venture Engine (DRIVE™) Network.
January 10, 2018 | Posted by Team in News |
Palo Alto, CA – January 10, 2018 — Science Exchange, the world’s leading and most secure enterprise platform for outsourced research and development (R&D), teamed up today with Lab Launch, a nonprofit working to provide affordable and high-quality laboratories to biotech startups. This partnership with Science Exchange allows Lab Launch’s resident companies to easily supplement and complement their in-house resources with external research tools, technologies, and expertise.
Science Exchange enables immediate access to over 2,500+ commercial CROs, academic labs, and government facilities under a single marketplace agreement, in addition to a 24/7 PhD-level support by Science Exchange staff scientists.
“Our goal is to give LA-based scientists and entrepreneurs every opportunity to further their ideas and innovations in a way that is affordable and that will also give them access to the best scientific resources available,” said Marie Rippen, CEO of Lab Launch. “By partnering with Science Exchange, Lab Launch can now offer our companies access to fully vetted service providers in a secure environment, so our scientists can devote time to advancing their ideas instead of being bogged down with administrative tasks including researching and negotiating with service providers.”
“Lab Launch and Science Exchange are both driven to give scientists the tools and support they need to be successful in developing their breakthrough ideas,” said Elizabeth Iorns, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of Science Exchange. “Scientists at Lab Launch will now automatically gain access to the best scientific providers to help bring groundbreaking discoveries to market. We are excited to be part of the process!”
Lab Launch is the latest R&D organization to choose to partner with Science Exchange and joins more than 30 enterprise clients and Life Science incubators that are effectively managing their outsourced R&D with Science Exchange-powered marketplaces.
About Lab Launch
Lab Launch Inc is a 501(c)(3) non-profit working to establish a more dynamic biotech startup environment in Los Angeles. Our mission is to enable LA’s scientists and entrepreneurs to develop their ideas in affordable, high-quality lab facilities, with access to services and a supportive innovation community to accelerate their success.
Request a demo of Science Exchange’s platform to see how your organization can benefit from increased access to innovation and organizational efficiency.
December 21, 2017 | Posted by Team in Outsourcing Trends |
by Elizabeth Iorns, Ph.D., CEO and Co-Founder, Science Exchange
Originally appeared in the 2017 Fierce Life Science Innovation Report (download PDF)
R&D productivity and efficiency are key measures for evaluating the success of biotech and pharma companies. In theory, investing resources into R&D to boost those measures should yield positive results. Unfortunately, recent trends suggest a less desirable outcome.
A primary driver of the R&D productivity decline is the prolific growth in innovative therapeutic modalities. The first siRNA therapeutics, CAR-T engineered cells, and viral gene therapies have all been approved by the FDA within the past 2 years alone. This innovation in the biotech and pharma industry has enabled spectacular successes in the treatment of devastating diseases, but it comes with significant operational challenges.
In contrast to the well-known development process for small molecules, these new highly specialized therapeutics require exponentially more diverse and complex technologies and expertise. So how do biotech and pharma companies access this evolving set of technology and expertise? Increasingly, they have shifted to a reliance on an external R&D ecosystem. By outsourcing, companies can manage fixed costs while accessing specialized technologies, particularly in complex R&D areas. As of 2017, nearly half of R&D budgets are spent on outsourced scientific services and the trend is increasing.
But, several challenges prevent companies from realizing returns on their outsourcing investments.
- First: even though outsourcing represents a rapid path to new technologies, identifying relevant and qualified service providers is a time-consuming task that can take weeks or even months.
- Second: contracts required to maintain confidentiality, protect IP, and ensure compliance can delay project initiation and add to transaction costs.
- Third: R&D organizations may have thousands of individual scientists conducting tens of thousands of outsourced R&D projects each year. Maintaining visibility, monitoring performance, measuring success represent a significant management burden.
Science Exchange directly addresses these challenges and has demonstrated a significant impact on productivity and efficiency in R&D programs around the world. The Science Exchange platform uniquely provides a marketplace of pre-qualified and pre-contracted outsourced R&D service providers to provide scientists with instant access to the innovative services necessary to advance today’s pipeline.
Get help leading change at your organization: request a demo of the Science Exchange platform.
December 18, 2017 | Posted by Team in News |
Palo Alto, CA – December 18, 2017 — Science Exchange, the world’s leading and most secure enterprise platform for outsourced research and development (R&D), today announced a strategic partnership with Breakout Labs, a fund within the Thiel Foundation that backs scientist-entrepreneurs working at the intersections of technology, biology, materials, and energy. The newly formed partnership allows for Breakout Labs to provide its portfolio companies’ scientists with on-demand access to a global network of research suppliers via the Science Exchange-powered private marketplace.
The private marketplace enables instant access to thousands of research tools, technologies, and services from over 2,500+ commercial CROs, academic labs, and government facilities under a single Science Exchange contract. Additionally, the platform users receive end-to-end PhD-level support from the Science Exchange staff scientists in identifying the best external innovations to expedite their R&D cycles.
“Our companies are small innovative startups that, despite being cash-constrained, are at the forefront of radical scientific breakthroughs,” said Hemai Parthasarathy, Scientific Director of Breakout Labs. “Science Exchange’s marketplace helps these companies adopt virtualization in their R&D process and give them an opportunity to access external resources they need to bring their innovations to market. Science Exchange fits into the ethos that prompted the formation of Breakout Labs by removing barriers for startups to access scientific services that will help accelerate their discoveries.”
“At Science Exchange, we are passionate about accelerating discovery by making connections — in this case, vital connections between scientist-entrepreneurs and experienced providers of scientific products and services,” said Elizabeth Iorns, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of Science Exchange. “Through this partnership, the scientists at Breakout Labs’ companies, can now focus on what they do best, bringing game-changing scientific discoveries to market, and rely on us to find the best scientific providers to help them accomplish that.”
Breakout Labs is the latest R&D organization to choose to partner with Science Exchange and join more than 30 enterprise clients and Life Science incubators that are effectively managing their outsourced R&D with Science Exchange-powered marketplaces.
About Breakout Labs
Breakout Labs is a revolving fund within the Thiel Foundation that supports early stage companies as they transition radical scientific advances out of the research lab and into the economy. The program backs bold scientists who work at the intersections of technology, biology, materials, and energy. More than capital, Breakout Labs provides additional support through a two-year program that includes introductions to follow-on funders, corporate partners and other resources to drive commercialization. To learn more, visit: www.breakoutlabs.org.
December 17, 2017 | Posted by Team in Outsourcing Trends |
At our recent 2017 Science Exchange Outsourced R&D Leadership Summit, procurement leaders met with the Science Exchange team to discuss the challenges and opportunities they are facing as they seek to effectively accelerate innovation while mitigating risk in outsourced R&D.
Summit attendees responded to a survey asking them about specific aspects of their R&D outsourcing process. 72% of the respondents agreed that procurement was viewed as a “necessary partner” in an “arduous process”– neither standing in the way nor adding value. In the survey, we uncovered these ‘arduous’ aspects of outsourcing that posed major barriers to innovation.
The bottom line: although outsourced R&D represents a source of expertise and novel technologies that researchers could tap in order to increase their R&D productivity, the barriers to onboarding new providers and the perceived risks to intellectual property are driving many R&D leaders to continue using previously contracted providers.
At our summit, procurement leaders discussed how technology platforms, particularly Science Exchange and its integrated marketplaces for custom synthesis and human biospecimens, could open up access to aggregated reviews of provider quality, streamline contracting, and protect IP — making it easier and faster to access emerging and novel service providers. With these resources, procurement leaders can become truly instrumental in driving innovation in R&D.
More survey results
See how challenging each step of the outsourced R&D process was perceived to be by outsourced R&D leaders:
Visit us to learn more about how Science Exchange can help you accelerate innovation through outsourced R&D.
November 20, 2017 | Posted by Team in News |
PALO ALTO, Calif.–Science Exchange, the world’s leading and most secure enterprise platform and aggregator for outsourced research and development (R&D), today announced a strategic partnership with Alector, a biotech company pioneering the discovery & development of immuno-neurology therapies for neurodegenerative disorders, to provide the company’s scientists access to a private R&D marketplace to accelerate their research.
“The Science Exchange platform solves the challenges of R&D outsourcing: we provide scientists with efficient access to a diverse network of qualified suppliers under a single relationship, and at the same time we provide sourcing departments with more information and control over their outsourcing spend,” said Elizabeth Iorns, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of Science Exchange. “We are thrilled to be the provider of Alector’s R&D marketplace and help bring potential treatments for Alzheimer’s disease to patients more quickly and efficiently. Especially following the exciting news on Alector’s partnership with AbbVie to advance therapies for Alzheimer’s disease, it’s clear that Alector has extremely promising drug targets — we’re honored to help accelerate these important discoveries.”
The Science Exchange-powered R&D marketplace enables scientists to instantly order more than 6,000 unique scientific services from the 2,500 CROs, academic labs, and government facilities that are available under a single Science Exchange contract. The partnership also will provide Alector with a platform to effectively manage the company’s outsourced R&D investments, including the ability to track supplier utilization, trends, and performance, which also supports the need for compliance with internal policies and external regulations.
Alector is the latest R&D company to choose to partner with Science Exchange, and joins more than 30 enterprise organizations, including 10 of the top 20 pharma companies, that use Science Exchange to more efficiently manage outsourced R&D.
“Science Exchange offers a unique platform for connecting with a broad network of qualified scientific service providers,” said Arnon Rosenthal, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of Alector. “It is our hope that working with Science Exchange will enable us to more quickly advance discovery and development of novel immuno-neurology therapies.”
Under the agreement, Science Exchange will support company-specific governance, approval workflows, and preferred vendors. To minimize the risk frequently associated with outsourcing to external service providers, the Science Exchange guarantee ensures complete protection of data, assets and performance of agreed-upon services, all backed by a best-in-class, SOC 2-compliant information technology security infrastructure. Science Exchange’s ISO 9001-certified quality assurance system and dedicated regulatory compliance team also support regulated work.
Visit www.scienceexchange.com/enterprise to request a demo of our award-winning private marketplaces for managing outsourced research and development!
September 18, 2017 | Posted by Team in Outsourcing Trends |
Contract review, service provider qualification, and security of intellectual property among major concerns for biotech and pharma leaders surveyed at 2017 industry conferences
PALO ALTO, Calif.– More than 100 biotechnology and drug development leaders who responded to surveys conducted during industry conferences earlier this year reported a wide range of barriers to the outsourcing of research and development (R&D) services, including the contracts review process, intellectual property (IP) security concerns, and service provider qualification. The surveys were conducted by Science Exchange, the world’s leading and most secure platform for outsourced research and development (R&D), during the 2017 Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) International Convention and 2017 Drug Industry Association (DIA) Global Annual Meeting.
More than 75 percent of Science Exchange survey respondents ranked the following concerns as barriers (a significant barrier or somewhat of a barrier) to the outsourcing of R&D services:
- Having contracts reviewed and signed
- Security of IP;
- Identifying service providers with required expertise;
- Qualifying service providers; and
- Negotiating pricing.
Time management related to R&D outsourcing was also reported as having a significant impact on these R&D leaders, with over 40 percent of those responding to the survey indicating they spent more than 20 hours to onboard each new outsourcing partner, from the request for proposal process, through contracting and start of the project. Finally, further demonstrating the impact of the time spent on administrative tasks related to outsourcing, more than 75 percent of survey respondents reported that the “hassle” of bringing on a new partner has previously led them to choose an existing vendor rather than seek out a more qualified option.
“The results of this survey echo the same concerns we heard from the leading biotech and pharma companies who now rely on Science Exchange to help them efficiently manage their outsourced R&D services,” said Elizabeth Iorns, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of Science Exchange. “In review of enterprise clients’ experiences, we find that our Science Exchange clients save thousands of work hours each year on procurement, business operations, contracting and legal resources, and administrative tasks related to outsourcing — time that can instead be spent in discovery. It’s gratifying to see that we’re able to fulfill our goal to support the scientific discovery process by removing barriers to innovation for our clients.”
See how your organization could streamline outsourced R&D through Science Exchange — request a demo of our platforms for enterprise clients.
May 8, 2014 | Posted by Tess Mayall in Scientist Profile |
Gordon Hardy in the lab at Hunt Imaging.
For this week’s story I spoke with Gordon Hardy who works on something most of us don’t think about very often – developing new inks and toners. More specifically, he is creating a new ink to print the small numbers on the bottom of checks. The problem is complex and interesting, check out his story below.
Q: What’s your role at Hunt Imaging?
Gordon: Mostly formulation and material analysis, but even customer support. It’s a small company, so you really have to do everything
Q: What did you use Science Exchange for?
Gordon: It’s an inkjet project. We have expertise in magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) ink here. It’s those funny looking characters that are printed on the bottom of checks. Those are read magnetically, so the ink itself has magnetic particles embedded in it. MICR toners are well established and with the current growth in high speed production inkjet printers there is a need for MICR inkjet, but it’s not an easy thing to create because you are trying to make iron float in water.
You can do it if you make the iron small enough, but if you make it too small it loses its magnetic strength. The problem is, you make it smaller and smaller and it gets less and less magnetic. So you have to make a different type of magnet, that’s not just iron, but something that’s a little stronger. You need to make them on the order of twenty nanometers; that’s what we’re working on now.
The particle size and even the particle shape is important. For our project on Science Exchange, the Nano Research Facility conducted TEM to look at the size and shape of the iron and other oxide particles we’ve generated. Read the rest of this entry »
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