A Leading CRO’s Digital Data Transformation

Jubilant Biosys improves data management, research productivity,and customer satisfaction with CDD Vault informatics platform
Jubilant Biosys, a major international contract research organization (CRO), has provided
comprehensive drug discovery and contract research services to the global pharmaceuticalindustry for 20 years. Headquartered in Noida, India with additional facilities in Bengaluru, thecompany’s more than 600 scientists offer a full suite of drug development and chemistry
expertise.
“Our vision is to become a top 10 CRO/CDMO and deliver ‘theadded dimension’ in discovery services,” said Marcel Velterop,president Drug Discovery Services and CDMO at Jubilant Biosys“We symbolize this by our 4D brand, which promises toaccelerate all aspects of both functional and integrated services
to our innovative customers around the world. Introducing a
digital agenda is a key part of this promise, and a range ofinitiatives have started, including CDD Vault ELN
implementation.”

Working collaboratively

Marcel Velterop, president Drug
Discovery Services & CDMO,
Jubilant Biosys“Clients of Jubilant Biosys include major pharma multinationals, virtual biotech companies,and academic labs. Trying to describe a 'typical’ project for Biosys is nigh on impossible”,
explained Takeshi Yura, Bengaluru site head. “Aside from compound discovery andoptimization, an emerging trend is for CROs to work more collaboratively with their clients”, headded.
So while the company routinely carries out conventional chemistry, biology, in vitro or in vivo
preclinical assay services for many clients, it may also be expected to play a more integral rolein molecule design and assay development. The unique nature of each project, coupled withthe emergence of high-throughput, high content assays and computational chemistry, meansthat Jubilant handles huge, very diverse datasets - from hundreds of partners - that must be
kept secure, but easily accessed by each client and authorized Jubilant scientist, Yura noted.
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The pitfalls of paper
This is, understandably, a mammoth task,
and until 2018, Jubilant Biosys managed
most of its workflows and results for eachproject using paper lab notebooks.
“Imagine the hugely time-consuming taskof scanning and sending PDFs ofpotentially thousands of paper notebook
pages to each client, as well as the need tostore and potentially retrieve the notebooks
at a later date, say, should the client returnwith a related project,” commented PrasantDeb, associate vice president, Synthesis.
Experimental data that is recorded on paper is effectively “dead,” Yura further noted. “No one
can get the maximum value out of hand-written results and protocols.”

CDD Vault as data management infrastructure
As Jubilant Biosys continued to grow the decision was made to adopt CDD Vault as the data
management infrastructure for the entire company, and rolled out the CDD Vault ELN acrossall sites. Today the platform is used daily by almost 600 scientists who record and manage
workflows, experimental protocols, SOPs, chemistry structures, and chemistry and biologicalassay results and all associated metadata, for a hugely diverse client base.
Highly intuitive and easy to configure, the CDD Vault platform has revolutionized data
handling, transfer and utility, for both Biosys and its clients, noted Vikas Shirsath, senior vicepresident, Global Operations, at Jubilant Biosys. “We can look back through experiments forthe project, and search for data in multiple ways,” Shirsath continued. “Duplication ofexperiments is very fast while sharing experimental and analytical data with clients is veryeasy.”“CDD Vault platform has
revolutionized data handling,transfer and utility, for both
Biosys and its clients.”- Vikas Shirsath, senior vice president,
Global Operations, Jubilant Biosys

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Insight and knowledge for the client
Clients may also have access to their own data
directly through the CDD Vault platform, Yura
explained, “… so they can see how far the project has
progressed, and review data in real time.” In addition,
the CDD Vault user interface and dashboard make it
simple to generate reports and data reviews on
multiple levels. “This helps to ensure that clients cananalyze all of the resulting data as it is generated, togain maximum insight and knowledge and makedecisions as the project progresses.”“Data security, retrievability
and traceability – combinedwith the ability to back up
systems, and the fact thatdata is available instantly.”- Sooriya Kumar, associate director ofcheminformatics, Jubilant Biosys

The capacity for companies to view their data in realtime also facilitates true collaborative working, suggested Sooriya Kumar, associate director ofcheminformatics at Jubilant Biosys. Many benefits, such as this, are ‘non-tangible,’ but hugely
important,” Kumar said. “Data security, retrievability and traceability – combined with theability to back up systems, and the fact that data is available instantly.”

Safety, security and flexibility
CDD Vault user- and project-based security and authorization levels ensure that each Jubilant
scientist – and their clients – can only view and search data relating to the project on which
they are working. “This level of security is a must for compliance in our business,” Deb
explained. In practice, as soon as a project is completed, its electronic database is closed, evento the Biosys scientists who were working on it.
The CDD Vault platform is inherently flexible forhandling both structured and unstructured
biology and chemistry workflows, which means it
has been a relatively smooth process to roll theplatform out across all departments at both theBengaluru and Greater Noida sites. Scientists caneasily set up new protocols, and share chemistry
and biology data for the same project. Critically,
the platform integrates seamlessly with softwarefor existing analytical instrumentation and otherplatforms, Kumar commented.

Fully integrated drug discovery solution
This combination of flexibility, ease of configuration and security, rolled into the CDD Vault
platform, is key to Jubilant’s ability to offer clients the highest level of drug discovery
capabilities as a fully integrated solution, Yura suggested. “In practice we view each project as
a partnership, whether that partnership involves carrying out repetitive assays or chemical
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syntheses, or working more autonomously for the client.”
Jubilant Biosys has transformed into a fully
digitalized and automated drug discovery services
partner, within a year. “Key on the list of ‘must-haves’
was that it would be a cloud-based solution, andoffers flexible ELN capabilities to manage diverse
chemistry and biology workflows.”
Selecting a straightforward system that is easy to getto grips with – for possibly 500 or more users in theshort term – meant that everyone was up andrunning and moved away from their paper books, ina reasonable timeframe.” CDD Vault is also easily
scalable, Kumar continued. “Even if I suddenly want
to increase from 500, to 1000 users, this is noproblem. I just relay the upscale to CDD, and they
configure it for me.”
In fact, CDD Vault was selected after an in-depth review of 6 or 7 potential candidates,according to Kumar. “We were very impressed with the CDD team – they understood what wewere looking for and provided great support.”

The human element
The importance of the human element, and usability, shouldn’t be underestimated, Kumar
further pointed out. There’s no point in taking on an ELN or digital data management platformthat no one wants to use because the training takes too long, or it is too complicated. One ofthe things we liked about CDD Vault is that it takes half a day max to train people to use it.
“With CDD Vault, Jubilant Biosys’ customers are now able to see their project evolution as it
happens, which is a clear advantage for a biotech or pharma when choosing a partner to workin a discovery project” said Remy Hoffmann, Sr Director BD Europe. “The platform facilitates
the close interaction between researchers at Jubilant
and their project originator counterpart. This real-time
conversation makes for true collaborative projects.

“With CDD Vault, Jubilant
Biosys’ customers are now
able to see their project
evolution as it happens.”- Remy Hoffmann, Sr Director BD Europe,
Jubilant Biosys

4Velterop concluded, “The transformation introduced bythe ELN in our labs showed our employees how life willchange from now on and confirmed to our customers
that we are catching up to add this dimension oftechnology to better support their mission of
discovering new candidates for the benefit of patients
globally.”collaborativedrug.com

To get your personalized demo or a free trial of CDD Vault,
contact info@collaborativedrug.com

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