Digital Transformation

Five Top Reasons Digital Infrastructure Drives Biopharma Company Value

by | Nov 16, 2021 | , ,

Merit customers continually tell us that digital infrastructure is one of their major determinants of company value when they raise capital or get acquired. One Merit customer, a late clinical-stage biotech with an injectable aesthetics therapy, intimated that having Merit and Microsoft's digital infrastructure in place increased their acquisition price by $500M.  In contrast, last month, another late-stage, biotech that did not invest in necessary digital infrastructure lost $635M in enterprise value, dropping 39% in their stock price in one day. This drop came from FDA audit observations indicating a lack of control and data completeness, which caused their product not to get approved for commercial offering. (Incidentally, this was not a Merit Solutions customer.) How do you...

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Change Management and Merit Solutions: Perspectives and Practices

by | Aug 30, 2021 | , ,

You’ve been called to a meeting to kick off an ERP implementation. Executives are present, along with divisional leaders and a handful of the company’s brightest employees. The discussion kicks off with an executive who states: “Over the next 6 to 12 to 18 months, we’re going to change our current software. We’ll automate paper processes, build in protection to ensure passing FDA audits, and much more. All it will take is...” At this moment, you're not thinking about the SOPs or the warehouse handhelds. Like any great leader, you’re thinking about the impact on your people. How do you ensure that your team not only survives but thrives through the implementation of an ERP solution? Success hinges on change management as part of a well-managed project. Effective Change Management Change...

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The Microsoft Cloud for Biotech and Pharma Manufacturers Just Got Better

by | Jul 16, 2021 | , , , , ,

Merit for Life Science just became more powerful because Microsoft today announced a new level of integration coming between Dynamics 365 (D365) and Teams. This includes Teams integration with Dynamics 365 sales, marketing, customer service, and field service workloads with operations to follow. Microsoft is essentially saying, “Use Teams as your front-end app for work, with everything else operating as a context-intelligent side pane within Teams.”  Merit for Life Science advances Microsoft's base business and productivity apps to fit the unique needs of pharma and biotech, so this announcement is especially powerful for our industry and our customers.  Multi-step Processes Get Mainstreamed Why?  In biotech, our customer acquisition process tends to be multi-step,...

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Low Code/No Code: In Life Sciences, Extend Carefully

by | May 25, 2021 | , , , ,

The old joke is that you can do anything with software if you have enough money. With an army of programmers, it was basically true. But now there is a new way to develop software quickly and with much lower investment: low code/no code programming, a.k.a. codeless app development. Essentially, modern digital platforms have created visual building blocks that can be assembled according to user experiences designed by “citizen developers,” a term coined to describe these non-traditional programmers. Imagine building applications or extending functionality without ever writing a line of code!    Microsoft Azure and Power Platform Tools Microsoft has a deep execution of this development approach in Azure with their Power Platform tools. Canvas apps are "no code," and model-driven...

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