The Hybrid Cloud: Collaborate and Share Content with External Entities While Protecting Confidential Information

Life sciences companies operate in an increasingly virtual environment in which suppliers, sub-contractors and other external entities must have access to core documentation and participate in mission-critical processes. Pharmaceutical and biotech companies can no longer be isolated silos, and the reality of this environment has created the need for a more effective solution for sharing, yet protecting, GxP-critical and HIPAA-critical content, as well as other sensitive documentation such as IP rights or patents.

This has led to an increasing demand to elevate information management and related processes off the ground and into the cloud. Cloud-based applications and platforms deliver numerous advantages over on-premise solutions, and represent a significant shift in how life sciences organizations store, manage, access, protect and share digital content. But should you abandon your existing systems and jump into the cloud, or are there advantages to maintaining on-premise servers and software deployments? The good news is that you don’t have to make this choice.

In the heavily regulated life sciences industry it's often preferred to keep specific applications and information on-premise behind the company firewall. A hybrid cloud model can prove to be the ideal manner for bridging the gap between the need to store certain data on-premise and the potential to improve business operations with cloud-based services.

With a hybrid cloud model, life sciences companies can replicate selected content to the cloud for collaborating with external parties, such as subcontractors, supplier, outsourced manufacturers, CROs, sponsors, customers, and clinical sites - while still securing sensitive information behind the firewall within an on-premise repository. In addition, this approach enables organizations to move content from an active cloud-based repository to an on-premise archive repository for long-term retention, which addresses demanding records management requirements as well as those associated with regulatory or quality compliance.

Session attendees will learn how a hybrid cloud-based approach to information management can significantly improve quality systems and compliance-related activities, while ensuring confidential information is secure and protected.