Waters and LabVantage Solutions have teamed-up to integrate laboratory software for improved efficiency and effectiveness in research.

Collaborating with existing common customers, Waters and LabVantage have already successfully integrated LabVantage's Sapphire Laboratory Information Management Suite (LIMS) with Waters NuGenesis Scientific Data Management System and Empower 2 chromatography data software (CDS) solutions.

Early results of the relationship have already seen a global pharmaceutical manufacturing organization simplify its laboratory data platforms from 31 site-specific systems to a single integrated, enterprise configuration comprising only two vendor's solutions worldwide: Waters and LabVantage.

"Manual transcription of instrumental data into the various software solutions and manual calculations are the biggest bottlenecks in a laboratory. This lowers the overall efficiency in the lab and also opens up gaps in regulatory compliance. Now, Waters will be able to offer integrated solutions that transpose instrumental data directly into a LIMS. This will increase the overall productivity and will also allow our pharmaceutical companies to face FDA audits more confidently," Chandresh Jain, AGM - Informatics, Waters India told Pharmabiz.

"Customers are seeking to decrease laboratory turnaround time, lower costs of laboratory operations, and reduce errors and non-compliance events throughout their company," says Ron Kasner, vice president, Corporate Development, LabVantage.

On the key advantages for customers in India with LabVantage's Sapphire Laboratory Information Management, Jain said "Eroding profit margins and the FDA's increased focus on quality has led the pharmaceutical industry to increase overall efficiency without compromising on regulatory compliance.

The QC testing plays a crucial role in guaranteeing the quality, safety, and efficacy of pharmaceutical products. It also represents a significant portion of the product manufacturing time. GMP regulations require maintaining thorough documentation to ensure strict compliance with established SOP's during product testing. Hence, completing paper documents and ensuring their authenticity creates a burdensome bottleneck in the QC laboratory. Electronic SOP form and worksheet systems like Waters NuGenesis SDMS Intelligent Procedure Manager, along with LIMS, present an opportunity to create semi-automatic Lean Process during the SOP documentation, thereby boosting productivity and accuracy in this largely labour-intensive component of the QC testing laboratory, Jain stated.

The advantages Indian customers of Waters will derive from a joint solution are the compliant ready labs to fulfil 21 CFR Part 11, Annex 11 and GMP/GLP electronic records requirements to ensure that electronic records are equivalent to paper documents. It will intelligently guide analysts through laboratory workflows to ensure SOP fidelity.

Further, interface with common laboratory instruments and systems (balances, pH meters, CDS, LIMS etc.) will help to eliminate transcription errors and duplication of efforts.

"Waters core informatics strategy promotes openness and interoperability, a philosophy that aligns perfectively with our growing strategic partnership program," said Phil Kilby, Senior Manager, Informatics Business and Partner Development, Waters Division.

LabVantage's Sapphire builds upon 20+ years of laboratory information management know-how and almost a decade of thin-client computing experience to deliver an enterprise LIMS platform that redefines and optimizes the way leading laboratories conduct business.