Update
Scientist.com adds animal welfare module to compliance solution
COMPLi enables companies to outsource regulated services, such as toxicology studies, human biological sample acquisition, secondary real-world evidence (RWE), health economics and outcomes research (HEOR), and GxP services, according to the company, which launched the solution in 2017.
The compliance solution helps customers adhere to various procurement policies and regulations and has now been expanded to include animal welfare considerations.
Matt McLoughlin, vice president of compliance and Categories at Scientist.com, told us the company has been working with a suite of top-30 biopharma and global providers of in vivo services to address challenges as they relate to conducting animal research.
“One of the core challenges identified was the variation related to and delays caused by the due diligence process on project timelines,” he said. To address this, the company developed a single due diligence questionnaire that all suppliers on the Scientist.com platform are required to complete.
As part of its ongoing efforts to ensure animals involved in scientific research are handled ethically and humanely, the company is running several initiatives, McLoughlin explained.
Among these include conducting meetings that bring together organizations in a pre-competitive dialogue to help identify solutions to challenges related to animal welfare.
Later this year, the company also will formally release the Animal Welfare component of its VERIF.i initiative.
Said McLoughlin, “VERIF.i provides an unbiased pre-assessment of a supplier’s site via an independent 3rd party inspection, further increasing the power of our COMPLi framework.”
Moving forward into 2020, McLoughlin said Scientist.com is looking to expand its reach “with the goal of positively impacting any aspect of drug discovery where transparency, visibility and control are as important as cost and time savings.”
Additionally, Scientist.com earlier this year launched its Trial Insights reporting solution, which collates data from publicly-available data sources, such as ClinicalTrials.gov, to help researchers make better-informed decisions.
Also this year, the company partnered with 5AM Ventures – which co-led an equity invest in Scientist.com in 2017 – to expand access to outsourced services for seed-stage companies.
Scientist.com CEO Kevin Lustig, PhD, told us at the time: “R&D marketplaces are the only general solution to this major challenge. Marketplaces allow researchers to save time, save money, access innovation, and ensure compliance with internal and external regulations, all at the same time.”
