My colleague Brian discussed the FIPNet model in his last post as a structure for drug development and as a model for allocating “core” and “non-core” competencies among various partners to assure that your business has best practices throughout the entire drug development lifecycle.
Today, I would like to talk about how “cloud computing” has accelerated and facilitated the viability of the FIPNet model. If you have used Facebook, Linkedin, Salesforce, Google Apps. or other similar tools on the Internet, then you have used cloud computing. “Cloud computing” in its broadest sense refers to the delivery of applications over the internet, which are accessed via a web browser; the data and software resides on remote servers. At Physiogenix, we have worked over the last year to move our IT infrastructure into the “cloud”. This has created greater efficiencies, dramatically reduced costs and increased our delivery time of information to our clients.
The use of cloud computing allows partners within a FIPNet to share information, calendars, have web meetings (e.g., WebEx, GoToMeeting) and manage projects (e.g., Basecamp) anywhere in the world, as long as they have access to the Internet. It doesn’t matter if one company is using Linux and the other is using Microsoft (or any other combination of client-side software/operating systems).
One of the current impediments to faster adoption of cloud computing is the security issue. My colleague Matt will dive into the issue of security in our next post.
Read the full article at PhysioGenix Research Blog
