Cloud Journey: Fueling Innovation and Progress in Life Sciences

Digitization is cutting short product life cycles, resulting in increased efficiency, enhanced scalability and higher customer expectations. Even companies in the life science have been impacted, as customers increasingly expect easy access to information on diagnosis, treatment and disease prevention.

To meet these growing demands and stay competitive, life science companies must embrace advanced digital solutions. Cloud migration stands out as a critical strategy in this evolution. By adopting a strategic cloud approach, organizations can achieve greater agility, scale their operations efficiently and access real-time data — all essential for staying ahead in a rapidly changing industry. The power of cloud computing in life sciences is undeniable, given its transformative impact on data management, collaboration and innovation in healthcare.

Let’s explore how cloud migration is fueling digital transformation in life sciences, highlight potential migration challenges and outline key considerations for selecting the right cloud migration partner for your organization.

Cloud Migration: Key to Life Science Digital Revolution

Personalized medicine has made big strides since the pandemic, thanks to data from smart health devices. Pharma and medical tech companies are also using new digital tools to improve their supply chains, tracking drugs more efficiently from the factory to the pharmacy.

The cloud offers a way to store and manage data online, delivering significant benefits to businesses. It enables companies to make data-driven decisions and provides a competitive edge in research. For instance, Moderna used advanced software to accelerate the development of life-saving products, illustrating the cloud’s pivotal role in in bringing innovations to market faster.

Cloud adoption also offers significant advantages for caregivers.

• Monitoring and treatment devices provide secure and continuous patient care, even remotely.

• The continuous collection of patient health data helps reduce the burden on health contact centers.

• Caregivers can easily collaborate with onsite teams and stay connected from anywhere.

Cloud Migration Challenges for Life Science Companies

While the value of cloud technology is undeniable – and most life sciences companies recognize the imperative for digital transformation – many lack a clear understanding of where that value lies and how to leverage it. This often leads to flawed strategies and slow implementations. Additionally, identifying key value drivers adds to the complexity, making it difficult for organizations in the sector to modernize the core systems.

Another challenge is navigating data protection, compliance and security. Many organizations need to manage data requirements and process latency-sensitive workloads locally, with regulations often mandating that some data and workloads remain on-premises.

The lack of a skilled workforce adds to the complexity. Cloud migration involves transitioning from traditional legacy systems to modern architectures with the latest technology stacks. This shift requires specialized expertise to ensure a smooth transition, making it a crucial factor for success. Finding or hiring proper talent in-house is not always feasible. Concurrently, stringent life science industry compliance requirements make finding and hiring a qualified external technology partner a challenging task.

As a result, many IT executives face significant obstacles in cloud migration, particularly when attempting to build a compelling business case for cloud adoption. Issues such as migration delays or fewer benefits than anticipated only add to the dilemma.

To manage these potential roadblocks and ensure a smooth cloud migration and adoption, it’s essential that life sciences companies choose the right cloud technology partner.

Selecting the Right Partner to Navigate Challenges

Overcoming the many life-sciences-specific challenges and unlocking the significant advantages of the cloud demands a strategic approach. To achieve a successful cloud transformation, you need more than just the right technology; you must choose the right partner and ensure everyone is aligned and working towards the same set of goals and objectives.

A seasoned technology partner can provide the expertise and experience necessary to help navigate the complexities of cloud migration, offering customized solutions to fit your needs. They manage risks, streamline deployment and provide ongoing support to address post-migration issues and optimize performance. Additionally, they help control costs, ensuring you get the most value from your cloud investment.

When selecting a cloud partner, enterprises should consider several best practices and factors to ensure a successful partnership.

Conduct a business health and risk management evaluation

The right cloud service provider should demonstrate robust governance and risk management policies in place. It is essential to evaluate their reputation, experience and customer reviews. The cloud partner should not only possess technical expertise but also understand your business objectives, ensuring alignment.  Compliance is another critical factor. The right cloud partner must be able to verify adherence to relevant regulations through third-party audits, proving their operational security and reliability.

Review technical expertise and operational processes

When choosing a cloud partner, prioritize their technical capabilities and processes. Ensure they offer easy deployment, management and upgrades, with standard APIs and data transformations for seamless integration. The provider should have a formal event management system integrated with monitoring tools and documented change management procedures for handling requests, approvals and implementations.

Evaluate security measures

When evaluating security practices, ensure the cloud provider has a robust security infrastructure covering all service levels. They should enforce comprehensive security policies and control access with strict identity management procedures. Verify they have reliable data backup and retention policies to protect data integrity. Additionally, check for physical security measures, including secure access to hardware, environmental safeguards, redundant networking and power and a clear disaster recovery and business continuity plan.

Migrating to the Cloud with Material 

Moving to the cloud in life sciences is no longer aspirational but mandatory. To manage the significant risks and costs involved in execute such a major shift, life sciences organizations must select a partner that not only possesses the required technical skills and experience, but also understands and aligns with the company goals.

At Material, we design cloud migration strategies tailored to organizations’ unique needs, no matter how complex. Instead of a standardized, one-size-fits-all approach, our proven cloud experts work closely with our clients to build a customized, viable solution that enables them to boldly embrace the digital future. To explore how we can support your goals, reach out today.