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Scimcon is proud to have sponsored both the SmartLab Exchange Europe and US events again this year, which took place from 21-22 February 2024 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and 8-9 April 2024 in Florida, USA.
The annual invite-only events facilitate one-to-one meetings and foster collaboration between experts across the lab informatics industry, from R&D to Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA/QC) decision makers.
Our team led panel discussions and also chaired the European event. From our conversations with delegates and industry experts, we have identified key trends across the lab informatics industry this year, and are sharing what we learned about user priorities in this rapidly evolving sector.
In attendance at this years’ events was our co-founder and lead consultant Geoff Parker, who moderated the opening panel discussion that asked the SmartLab community ‘what does digital transformation mean to you?’. At both the Europe and US events, users across the industry shared their insights on digital transformation and where they are in their journey, where they’re planning to be, and what tools / solutions are making these goals achievable.
We informally surveyed 112 delegates at this years’ events (65 from Europe, 47 from the US) to understand what decision makers are prioritising this year, and what areas of lab informatics will be most in-demand.
Part of our discussions with delegates includes asking what informatics tools and capabilities they are prioritising investment in over the coming 12 months. The following themes emerged from these discussions:
LIMS remains a mainstay solution, with 17% of delegates confirming they plan to invest in a new LIMS or expand their current LIMS over the next 12 months. AI and automation are close second and third priorities, which is perhaps unsurprising. We expect more users to explore AI and automation as lab managers invest in these technologies to streamline operations, simplify and automate processes, and minimise the risk of human error. However, preparedness for implementing AI needs careful attention if labs are to capitalise on its promise.
There are no shortage of informatics tools on this list, such as ELN, QMS, and scheduling tools, so it’s understandable that connectivity remains a key priority for delegates too, as interconnected instrument networks are central to productivity and ease of data transfer.
We also provided attendees with a list of lab informatics solutions and asked them to identify which of these were high and medium priority for their organisation.
Lab automation is once again high on the list of priorities for delegates, with 82 saying it was a high priority and 18 considering it a medium priority. Data quality/integrity also remains key for delegates, so solutions that ensure data quality is maintained and data are standardised are poised to remain popular. Data integration and connectivity also remain important, which again highlights that decision makers prioritise instruments that can communicate with each other and the lab informatics systems seamlessly, while maintaining data integrity and streamlining lab processes.
The insights gleaned from both SmartLab Exchange events reflect what is happening across the wider industry.
Technology is constantly evolving. As solution providers and instrument vendors innovate with new systems that aim to alleviate the challenges faced by labs and improve processes, we expect more and more users to invest in technologies that automate repetitive and time-consuming processes. By also ensuring that data quality is standardised and stored securely, scientists will have more time to focus on the science that matters.
We’re proud to support labs with the next step of their digitalisation journey, and are excited to see what else the future has in store for our industry.
For more information about how we can support your next lab informatics project, contact us.
Trends in the lab informatics landscape in 2023?With our sponsorship of SmartLab Exchange Europe and US earlier in 2023, and our sponsorship of FutureLabs this week, we’ve developed a view of key insights on what is happening across the lab informatics industry, and where priorities lie for lab-centred organisations globally. We have also provided insight into the areas budget-holders are looking to invest in new technologies.
Attending conferences globally means that our team can provide key insight to share with fellow informatics peers. Face-to-face interactions provide an opportunity to receive instant feedback and insight into lab informatics trends, which we can extract valuable data from.
Having spoken to delegates in North America and Europe this year already, we have identified some of the high priority investment areas for lab informatics in 2023 by comparing what is important to event attendees, who include representatives from leading pharma, biotech, material science, crop science, FMCG, and food companies. Of the global companies who attended, more than 120 people were polled:
Figure 1 represents the data from both SmartLab Exchange Europe and US, to give an overall view of lab informatics priorities across the entirety of 2023 thus far:
The graph also demonstrates other key lab informatics investment priorities (from the EU and US summits), and these include:
We can see a real trend towards intelligent systems this year, as data consolidation and reusability take centre stage and budget-holders looks towards automation, both physical and within software systems, to reduce the risks of human and manual errors. This isn’t a trend that’s isolated to a particular lab sector either – we’re seeing similar trends across all sectors.
Extracting feedback from delegates at conferences in all geographies means we can identify patterns in the data in order of priority. While Figure 1 highlights high priority investment areas, Figure 2 shows exactly what delegates at SmartLab Exchange Europe and US are planning to assign budget to in the next 12 months:
From Figure 2, we can see that immediate investment priorities for SmartLab Exchange Europe and US attendees are as follows:
From both events in both geographies, we can see that automation and digitalisation rank highly in terms of investment priorities for 2023. Laboratories are technologically innovating to suit growing capacity and speed to market. Automation also substantially reduces the risk of human error, as repetitive and manual tasks can be carried out with ease using automated solutions.
We also learn that lab users are prioritising areas such as lab scheduling, method development, data governance, connectivity, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML). As throughput expectations increase for labs around the world, the need to digitalise and streamline operations is more prevalent than ever. The aim of many laboratories is to increase efficiency within the lab, and digitalisation acts as a catalyst in this process.
You can find our team between Wednesday 31st May – Friday 2nd June at FutureLabs Live, where we’ll be developing more lab informatics insights from fellow sponsors and guests. Stay up to date with our LinkedIn, to be notified of other tradeshows Scimcon is attending this year.
Visit Scimcon at the event and contact us directly to book a conversation, to learn more about how we can support your lab informatics projects.
Scimcon sponsors SmartLab Exchange and identifies priority themes for 2022 lab informatics?The SmartLab Exchange, from April 26-27, 2022 at the InterContinental At Doral Miami – Doral, FL is one of the global meetings for lab informatics leaders. Scimcon continues its proud sponsorship of this event, and attended in person to facilitate one-to-one meetings with a number of informatics customers from big pharma and lab-centric sectors. Scimcon sponsors the SmartLab Exchange because it provided a useful access to the community of senior R&D, Quality Assurance and Quality Control decision-makers from industry in North America.
Speakers at the 2022 SmartLab Exchange included the best of the best, with attendees from Proctor & Gamble, Biovia, Bayer, AstraZeneca, Sanofi and Amgen, among others. SmartLab Exchange is attended by invite-only decision-makers. The unique invite-only format of the event means that both sponsors, speakers and delegates can access a closed community that meets their individual needs.
Attending from Scimcon were Geoff Parker and Dave Sanders, and during the event they took the opportunity to poll the customers and contacts from many of the attending organizations, to identify the current 2022 trends in the lab informatics industry. SmartLab Exchange represents the lab informatics community across industries including:
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Geoff and Dave spoke with representatives from a multitude of organizations to take a pulse of the trends in the industry. Geoff explains:
“Scimcon works globally as a lab informatics consultant and implementation partner, with big pharma and biotech companies as well as vaccine manufacturers. We tend to see similar challenges from lab to lab, from organization to organization, and it is useful to take events like SmartLab Exchange as a means of checking in and ensuring that our customers’ needs are current.”
In the informal poll of attendees at SmartLab Exchange, Scimcon was able to identify key trends and themes that are important to the modern lab in 2022.
The subjects identified as highest interest to the delegates were:
Interest in product areas for the lab was high, especially for:
There was a general trend for interest and support in data integration and systems integration.
Geoff summarizes “As lab informatics consultants with a global customer base in pharma and biopharma labs, it is important to us to check in with influential decision-makers from the lab. SmartLab Exchange gave us a useful ability to poll the attendees and see trends that will impact the modern lab decision-maker, and will help us at Scimcon to hone the way we partner with our customers.”
Scimcon is proud to sponsor SmartLab Exchange, and support customers in life sciences with their lab informatics management and strategy. For more information about Scimcon’s services, contact us today.
