How Scientists Can Benefit from Using a LIMS

SampleManager LIMS Software Helps Thermo Fisher Pharma Services Focus on Science

In the laboratory, data drudgery can make every day feel like Monday. The requirement to record all the very mundane (but vital) details of everything. Every test. Every sample. Every reagent, column, and instrument. Everything. Add disconnected systems and several different locations and you have… data drudgery.

When Thermo Fisher Pharma Services sought a new laboratory information management system (LIMS) to manage its global network of 55+ sites, leadership hoped the new platform would relieve the data drudgery for its analysts. With expertise in drug development, clinical trial logistics and commercial manufacturing, Pharma Services supports customers from development through commercial supply.

“Probably one of my greatest desires for a laboratory information management system, particularly one that captures experimental details in a structured way, is really relieving the burden of all that data collection,” recalled Bill Weiser, Senior Director Quality Systems, Global Quality Assurance, Pharma Services.

Pharma Services’ leaders selected Thermo Scientific™ SampleManager LIMS™ software to support the organization’s quality control strategy and tackle data drudgery. The decision has already benefited scientists across the business. 

LES Simplifies Data Capture

One of the key weapons in Pharma Services’ battle against data drudgery is the Laboratory Execution System (LES). LES is an essential tool for laboratories looking to drive process compliance and enable electronic management and execution of SOPs. It provides a way to digitize laboratory procedures so that you can walk your staff through complex tasks step-by-step, checking resource availability and recording data directly to the LIMS as you go. LES helps ensure correct and accurate SOP execution and captures the complete process history, driving quality and compliance through consistent, repeatable, and controlled execution of methods and processes. LES can replace traditional physical lab notebooks with digital ones, providing a single point of data capture for lab processes.

Pharma Services quickly recognized the value of LES in overcoming data drudgery. “The use of SampleManager LIMS, and particularly the laboratory execution system module, really reduces that burden,” Weiser said. Pharma Services analysts use the LES module in SampleManager LIMS software to capture data on samples, reagents, columns, and instruments. Once the data is entered, analysts use barcodes and scanning equipment to reference that data, instead of continually re-entering the data. The result is a more efficient and productive laboratory and an improved experience for the scientist.

Reducing Human Error and Fostering Innovation

Pharma Services scientists realized immediate benefits from the SampleManager LIMS software implementation. For one, decreasing the number of data entry points in the lab has helped reduce human error, according to Saly Romero-Torres, Senior Director Digital Quality Systems, Pharma Services. With the LES module in place, scientists have a tool that supports SOPs and helps them complete tasks in a standard way. Having a digital solution that decreases the probability of human error and demonstrates that work is done following SOPs, Romero-Torres says, is critical to building customer trust.

Tanya Tadey, Director of Laboratory Systems and Technology, Pharma Services, believes conquering the data barrier will speed the delivery of quality medicines to patients around the world. “Our QC colleagues will have a very powerful tool to much more quickly analyze, interpret and report complex data from various sources.”

Weiser believes removing the mundane data management tasks also enables Pharma Services scientists to focus on more high-value work. “Unleashing the ability for people to think, to understand, analyze data and actually gain insights that will help accelerate our ability for our customers to develop medicines and bring those to market quicker for unmet medical needs. Innovation is fostered because our analysts in the laboratory, and our scientists are less encumbered by having to record that data and can focus more on what the data and the results mean.”

Looking to the future, Weiser sees expanded services and improved quality resulting from the LIMS implementation. “We’ll see much less time collecting data or looking at reports or printouts and much more focus on making sound decisions for product quality. That’s really exciting about the digitalization and the future of a digitally connected laboratory.”

Learning More

To hear more from Bill Weiser, Saly Romero-Torres and Tanya Tadey on how scientists benefit from SampleManager LIMS software used at Thermo Fisher Pharma Services, check out our video. You can also visit our website to learn more about SampleManager LIMS software and Thermo Fisher Pharma Services.