NPIL implements LabVantage’s Sapphire for its R&D facilities

Joy Roy Choudhury - Kolkata

Nicholas Piramal India Ltd (NPIL) announced that it has chosen Kolkata-based Lab-Vantage Solutions’ state-of-the-art Sapphire Life Science LIMS for implementation at its end-to-end drug discovery R&D facilities in Mumbai and Chennai.

Confirming the development, N K Chawla, chief information officer (CIO), NPIL told Express Pharma Pulse, ‘‘NPIL has always been ahead on implementation of any useful technology when required, so we decided to implement LabVantage’s Sapphire Life Science LIMS. And with the patent regime in place and the focus of Indian pharma industry on exports to developed world, adoption of technology in pharma industry is going through a significant change.’’

The modules, which will be implemented, are sample management, documentation management, instrumentation management, stability management, integration with lab equipment, workflow management, inventory management and others.

NPIL will be implementing LabVantage Solutions India’s Sapphire Life Science LIMS from June this year. He added this will help NPIL to digitise its R&D functions and also help become 21CFR Part 11 compliant, required to meet FDA regulations. Chawla declined to comment on the quantum of investment pumped in for implementation of the LIMS package.

The CIO feels that the implementation will provide a common platform for information sharing and storage. ‘‘It will help us implement common and standard processes organisation-wide. It will also provide audit trial as required from the audit perspective. We evaluated a number of available LIMS packages and had established clear evaluation criterias. LabVantage India’s Sapphire Life Science LIMS meets all our requirements, namely, functional, technology and support,’’ Chawla said.

Anil P Kastuar, president, LabVantage Solutions Pvt Ltd, said, ‘‘In their quest for being at the cutting-edge of life science research, NPIL chose LabVantage’s Sapphire after a thorough competitive and technical evaluation by an expert panel of leading scientists and other technical personnel. NPIL’s choice of Sapphire vindicates LabVantage’s stand of it being generations ahead of other contemporary LIMS solutions and justifies Sapphire receiving 2004 Frost & Sullivan Award

for Product Innovation.’’ He claimed that this is the first of its kind LIMS implementation project undertaken by any Indian pharma company for their drug discovery R&D.