Informational Meeting: caBIG™ Service Provider Program

[Summary Notes]{.underline}

**Prospective Service Buyer's Point of View**

Panel: Martin L. Ferguson, David Fenstermacher (Moffitt), Robert
Annechiarico (Duke)

During this section, representatives of both commercial and academic
entities, with experience as "buyers" of IT support services, presented
key issues in decisions to procure services in a technology-centric
emerging market situation.

[Robert Annechiarico (Duke)]{.underline}

-   Provided overview of Duke informatics organization and
    infrastructure, focusing particularly on the clinical trials
    elements of infrastructure, which extends beyond the science into
    financial areas as well.

-   Duke set-up is not all caBIG™ - there are other pieces hanging off
    of it, and it all needs to connect to Duke's larger infrastructure

-   Wish List: Supplement staff capability, extend capabilities -- need
    "go to" technical support and programming resources. Need
    continuity, and patch control. Need to make sure that future
    iterations are monitored and that patches are available. Need to
    help maintain the interoperability element over the long term, as
    pieces evolve and become increasingly interconnected.

[Martin L. Ferguson\
]{.underline}

-   Speaking from the perspective of a procurer of services, seeking
    "work for hire" software development and hosting services.

-   Providers need domain-specific technical knowledge: know both IT
    (three tier technology) and biomedicine (human subjects awareness,
    biomolecular knowledge) -- need a strong understanding of regulatory
    realities and impacts in this field.

-   Other key criteria: Provider corporate stability: financial
    stability, credit/financials, M&A.

-   Contractual dynamics: flexible contracting mechanisms (fixed price,
    time and materials), service level agreements, willingness to
    barter, quality guarantees, willingness to train buyer, source code
    deposition into escrow.

-   Need to have an understanding of boundaries between academic and
    industry collaborations -- different interests can be coordinated
    (open source versus proprietary).

-   Value of license: technical competence, engagement with community.

[David Fenstermacher (Moffitt)]{.underline}

-   Representing non-profit view... We like to tinker with software, so
    don't want to give all that up.... BUT, we also need
    commercial-grade software to serve our entire community.

-   Our case study: caTissue Core. We did an initial evaluation of
    requirements -- and found we needed the entire CAP list, barcoding,
    and certain fields (container type). Having a structured project
    plan was also important to us. After doing our assessment, we
    decided NOT to go with caTissue, and procured a tool that is not
    caBIG™ compatible. Now, we need to figure out how to GET compatible,
    even though what we bought was not caBIG™ compatible (and vendor is
    not planning on making it compatible).

-   Needs: onsite installation and configuration (ETL, integration, data
    quality and data migration/integration), and acceptance testing?
    Need ongoing support, help desk, bug reporting, tiered support --
    different options for responsiveness levels. Need support for end
    user directly, and we need training.

-   Need caBIG™ compatibility certification, so that if we extend
    software, we can then get it checked. Need external groups to do
    this -- existing VCDE review process is too slow and limited in
    scope/coverage.

-   We need to be able to compare licensed providers to other providers:
    cost, risk assessments, ongoing support plans, conflict resolution
    mechanisms and warranties.

[Questions/Answers for Buyers:]{.underline}

-   Q: Small businesses will have a tough time competing against these
    requirements, and the large companies are going to cost too much.
    How are you going to deal with this? A: Combinations of large
    companies with small subcontractors is a possibility here. There's a
    diversity of companies and company sizes -- there may be value in
    partnerships among you. Different users will have different needs;
    different services will require different levels of support. There
    are going to be tradeoffs that will be worked out in the competitive
    landscape. You have to build your own business model -- what
    services do you want to provide that fit your own size and business
    model?

-   Q: There's not just competition between service providers, but also
    between cancer centers. How do you see that playing out? A: There
    may be less competition than you think -- there's an even playing
    field to start from. Research is not a barrier to collaboration --
    in fact, take the SPORES as an example -- the collaborative
    environment is now a criterion for successful competition of grants
    -- the rewards are shifting from competition to collaboration. The
    whole is greater than the pieces. Science is getting bigger -- and
    the competition isn't in the infrastructure.

-   Q: How many providers do buyers want to have? A: As few as possible,
    but there won't be just one that can do everything -- we need to
    make decisions based on what is needed. No one provider is going to
    be good at everything, but there's no optimal number. You want
    healthy competition, it's an emerging market -- partnerships will be
    important to help both provide a market and allow for competition.

-   Q: What is the procurement process in your organization? How
    streamlined is it? How centralized is it, or is it distributed
    throughout organization? A: Every organization is different --
    ranging from central IT shops to highly distributed groups in
    different departments. Knowing who the buyer groups are is hard
    sometimes. Some are at level of department, some at the cancer
    center, some at the medical center, and some are at the
    university-wide level. It varies by both center and need.

-   Q: There's a balance and choice between products and services --
    will they be done together? A: These are unifying principles that
    cancer centers look at -- each center will have a slightly different
    path, and there needs to be a mix. Individual companies will build
    reputations that will get spread throughout the community -- we ask
    each other, "What are you using? What works?" We don't trust
    brochure-ware.

-   Q: What are the funding mechanisms? Where does money come from? A:
    It will have to come from customers. Funding is a matrix -- there's
    a core grant, there's revenue from pharma trials, SPORE grants, DoD
    funding, etc -- there's some fluidity there from different sources
    that can be leveraged here.

-   Q: What's the size of the market? A: Hard to estimate - caBIG™
    services will eventually be asked for in areas where government
    money is not involved -- e.g., philanthropic funding,
    pharmaceuticals that will need to take data in for certain studies
    -- there are lots of possibilities.