22 October 2007
Pharmaceutical Industry Drives Demand For Compliant Managed Services
Logicalis Awarded 5-Year Contract With Biotechnology Company, Avecia Biologics
Slough, 22 October 2007: Logicalis, an International solutions provider, today announces it has been awarded a 5-year managed services contract with biotechnology company, Avecia Biologics, worth £2.7million. The service, which includes 24/7 management and monitoring of Avecia's server farms, applications and storage area network (SAN), will support their consolidated IT infrastructure, and support compliance regulations stipulated by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA).
Following a significant restructure of the business, Avecia needed to upgrade and consolidate its legacy IT infrastructure in order to meet the demands of the pharmaceutical industry, and to comply with FDA requirements for auditing, security and availability of data.
Campbell Kay, head of IT for Avecia, explains, “We've recently re-organised the business and therefore it was important to reflect this within our existing IT architecture. By consolidating and upgrading our assets we would not only improve the efficiency of our applications and processes, but also assure our customers of the continuous development of our compliance programme.
“The availability and accuracy of information is critical to the pharmaceutical industry, and in this respect, round-the-clock systems management & monitoring to support all our IT processes is essential for the operation of our business and for the stringent compliance auditing and reporting purposes.”
Prior to the managed services contract being awarded, Logicalis designed and enabled the virtualisation of a significant part of Avecia's IT infrastructure, reducing the number of servers from 100 to 40 and adopting high-performance software for its applications and processes.
Kay adds, “Logicalis' ability to call on their technical and managed service expertise is quite unique amongst its peers, and as such we've developed an excellent collaborative partnership.”
Working to a strict timescale, Logicalis designed and delivered the virtualisation project and implemented the subsequent managed service in accordance with Avecia's demanding business deadlines, and to support the new company structure.
Tom Kelly, managing director, Logicalis UK , comments, “The need for IT systems to flex and change as businesses diversify means the IT department is often on the back foot. However, the fast-paced nature of the pharmaceutical industry sees new processes and techniques for clinical development and the manufacture of medicines emerging every week.
“In this environment, companies like Avecia need to respond rapidly and focus on implementing these core practices, whilst remaining compliant at all times. Avecia's decision to adopt virtualisation techniques, and deploy an on-demand virtual IT team means they now have the agility to transform their IT estate as often as their business model changes.”
About Avecia Biologics, www.avecia.com
Avecia Biologics is a leader in the process development and manufacture of biologics, offering proprietary expression and gene manipulation systems for microbial-derived biopharmaceuticals, with cGMP manufacturing in the North East of the UK for recombinant protein biologics offering flexible capacity from 100L - 5000L for all stages of the product pipeline. A strong project-team focus ensures close customer collaboration at all stages of the client's program delivery both technical and service excellence.
About Logicalis
Logicalis is an international provider of integrated ICT solutions, delivering secure, converged computing and communications infrastructure and services. We can provide the architecture, deployment, integration and management of networks and systems to deliver leading edge solutions that create value for our customers and meet their business needs now and into the future.
Logicalis is a trusted provider of multi-vendor solutions and services operating in the most complex and challenging business environments. Our relationships with the industry's leading technology suppliers, combined with our business understanding enable you to invest with confidence.
The Logicalis Group is a division of Datatec Limited (DTC), a $3.2 billion multi-national Group listed on the AIM market of the LSE and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. With international headquarters in the UK, the Logicalis Group has operations in the US, UK, Germany, and South America.
Logicalis UK has achieved independent certification for its integrated management system, information security, IT service management offerings and its environmental standards: ISO 9001; ISO 27001; ISO 20000 and ISO14001 respectively.
For further information contact:
Jennifer Manning / Charlotte Sandy
Tel: 01291 626200
Logicalis@cohesive.uk.com