Modernizing Clinical Trials: Digital Technologies and the Cloud
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Published by FiercePharma
at all points. With so many scientists handling so
many hard drives, there would be a lot of failures,
because not ever yone would be able to follow the
security guidelines."
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Cloud-based collaborations also have the additional
ad vant age of b eing cos t- ef fec tive for res earc h
collaborators with limited resources. The prohibitive
cos t of inves ting in b et ter comp uter s and t he
infrastruc ture to suppor t them can limit valuable
contributions from collaborators and contrac tors
who need to move quickly or have limited funding.
The on-demand computing power of the cloud can
be at the finger tips of ever y contributor, regardless
of location.
Power ful cloud computing is a key component that
enables collaborating researchers to run hundreds
or even thousands of progr ams, c alculations, or
simulations in parallel and get fast results. Companies
like Celgene, Bris tol- Myer s Squibb
8
, and Fabric
Genomics
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are already using the AWS cloud to make
8 "AWS Case Study: Bristol-Myers Squibb." Amazon, Amazon,
ht tps://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case -studies/bristol-myers-
squibb/
9 "Fabric Genomic s Case Study - Amazon Web Ser vices
(AWS)." Amazon, Amazon, ht tps://aws.amazon.com/solutions/
case -studies/fabricgenomic s/
high-per formance computing possible to help them
speed research or clinical analysis.
INTELLIGENCE THAT CAN DRIVE ACTION
As integrated data pipelines become standard in
advanced research labs across the world, moving from
raw data to insights and ac tion can happen much
more quickly. With data more securely accessible in
the cloud, additional technology, such as machine
learning, can be incorporated to complement the
work of scientists and researchers. Technology that
can analyze data, predict trends, aler t researchers to
issues that warrant further analysis, or perform simple
but necessar y daily tasks makes lab environments
more ef ficient.
Programs like LabAler t, developed by Celgene,
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continuously monitor instruments and application
status so scientists can focus on other value-added
tasks. Using Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)
and AWS Lambda, researchers are notified on their
mobile devices if there is an equipment malfunction
or if an experiment finishes while they are away,
10 Bookbinder, Maxine. "Celgene's LabAler t System Focuses
On Scientific Work flow Ef ficienc y, User E xperience." Bio-IT
World, June 18, 2018. ht tp://w w w.bio -it world.com/2018/06/18/
celgenes-labaler t-system-focuses- on-scientific-work flow-
ef ficienc y-user- experience.aspx
