10 October 2011 - Information Ecosystem Workshop

The Pistoia Alliance held an interactive workshop in Hannover, Germany, to describe the evolving "information ecosystem" in biomedical and pharmaceutical research and determine strategies for collaboratively shaping this ecosystem to maximum advantage. About 40 participants representing the pharmaceutical industry, software and systems vendor community, information technology industry, commercial content providers, and academia attended the workshop. Attendees praised the engaged discussion. "Ultimately, it depends on the follow through from here," said one attendee.

Worshop highlights

The workshop had two goals:

• Describe how to harness the magnitude, complexity, and dynamics of this information ecosystem to best serve scientists working biomedical and pharmaceutical research.
• Develop the first draft of a roadmap of the standards necessary to support work within this dynamic information ecosystem.

The morning session covered the first goal. It included

• A kick off presentation by Michael Braxenthaler (Roche) that set up the inspiration for the workshop and the Pistoia Alliance's role within the information ecosystem.
• A discussion and breakout topics centered on understanding the key features of the information ecosystem, the key gaps, and what changes could be made to make this environment more effective. Breakout topics included:
  • The industry and academic collaboration space (led by Nick Trigg, Constellation Technologies)
  • Exchange of discovery/chemistry information with CROs (led by Nick Lakin, Cognizant)
  • Exchange of biology/NCD information with CROs (led by Gordon Baxter, Instem)
  • Integration of public and proprietary content (led by Andreas Mantern, Thomson Reuters)
  • The standards landscape (led by Susanna Sansone, Oxford University)

The afternoon session elucidated how the goals identified during the morning session could be reached. Breakout sessions were organized around the following topics:

• Low-hanging fruit: Projects that could be tackled in a one-year time frame (two groups, one led by David Klatte, Pfizer, and another led by Paul Bradley of BioWisdom and Barry Hardy of DouglasConnect
• Continuing focus areas and mid-term activities: Tackling more complex problems (led by Misha Kapushesky, Genestack)
• Supporting the information ecosystems with standards by addressing status, gaps, and redundancies (led by Susanna Sansone, Oxford University)
• Business models: Rethinking the game (led by Nick Trigg, Constellation)