ELNs Poised for Double Digit Growth
Greater Capabilities and Application Specificity Set to Raise the Prominence of Electronic Lab Notebooks in Laboratory Informaticsby Bernard Tulsi
Long revered for their rich content, their potency in patent issues and for their often critical role in the regulatory arena, paper notebooks are a laboratory mainstay. But these static repositories have long stymied efforts to aggregate and mine their contents, let alone allow their enterprise-wide availability. Eager to access any productivity-boosting information, many researchers have been eyeing, with renewed interest, the increasingly-capable electronic laboratory notebooks (ELNs), which appear to hold the key for capturing and sharing enterprise-wide information once confined to individual notebooks.
To be sure, ELNs have been available since the early 1990s. For most the last decade, however, despite some initial enthusiasm over their ability to facilitate work-product sharing in an environment that safeguards intellectual property (IP), ELNs were not widely adopted. Many researchers held the view that ELNs seemed better suited for the administrative rather than technical side of science, and did not consider their workflow improvements over paper notebooks meaningful enough.
During the last few years, though, ELNs have been greeted with renewed interest. Part of the reason is the emergence of "specific" ELNs, which address particular applications, according to Michael Elliott, CEO Atrium Research (Wilton, CT). Now, ELNs have heightened capabilities for searching and planning, integrating analytical equipment and streamlining the preparation of legal documentation. ELN vendors have also markedly improved the architecture of the tool, and a number of once scarce features, such as electronic signatures, are now
widely incorporated.
Suggesting that there is no let up in the trend, in early January this year, Symyx (Santa Clara, CA) rolled out a new version of its Discovery Notebook, which incorporates ELN applications tailored to specific needs of chemists involved in discovery, process, analytical, formulations and bioprocess functions. This product was designed to integrate easily with the existing systems of end users to facilitate the leveraging of current resources, better data collection and use and enhanced productivity, according to Paul Nowak, COO at Symyx Technologies.
On top of greater efficiency in the laboratory, the benefits of ELNs include reduced paperwork, which translates into more bench time for scientists and less burdensome report writing for team leaders. The newer, more capable ELNs also provide better decision support, help to slash the cost and complexity of IT infrastructure and promote improved data organization and security. One of the highly attractive features of ELNs is the ability to avoid duplication. Researchers can easily reuse aspects of prior experiments—even work done by other scientists or teams.
"Anytime you can reduce duplication, speed up processes and make faster decisions, you should be able to speed up discovery time, which is key to the thought process of end users," says Pat Martell, director, informatics product marketing with Waters. At this time, Waters offers the eLab Notebook with ELN software that acts as a portal via which commonly used software programs can be accessed while capturing all content electronically and in accordance to good laboratory notebook practices.
"Adopting this new system [ELNs] decreases the risk of losing data and decreases the risk of repeating experiments," according to Chris Coppin, senior research manager with medical devices giant, Medtronics' heart valve business unit. D. Stewart Larson, CEO of EKM Corporation, which makes the LABTrack family of products centered on ELNs for scientists and engineers, says, "Among our customers, Medtronics is furthest along in terms of enterprise-wide deployment at this time." Larson notes that EKM's customers in the chemical, medical devices and chemical businesses are reporting that LABTrack is an important tool in "mission critical areas of IP protection and risk avoidance."
Atrium, a scientific market research and consulting outfit, rates ELNs as one of the fastest growing segments in laboratory informatics, and estimates market growth at between 30% and 40% for 2006 versus 2005, with total revenues at some $50 million. While the ELN segment is relatively small—just more than one-tenth the $450 million in annual sales for Laboratory Information Systems (LIMS)—Atrium estimates that ELN sales are growing four times as fast as LIMS' sales.
Robert Pavlis, President of Labtronics (Guelph, Ontario), which makes and sells both ELNs and LIMS says, "ELNs are only 10% of our sales right now but sales are growing faster than LIMS. I am certain this trend will continue." ELNs originally started out as an R&D tool and most vendors focus on the needs of research laboratories. But Labtronics is in the QA/QC space. "Our Nexxis qELN is designed for the quality control area, which forces conformity with the steps, the right instruments, the correct calibration and correct limits. This is a highly controlled process with strict recording," says Pavlis.
Growth is estimated in the double digits during the next four years. Atrium's CEO Michael Elliott noted that some 20% of all commercial life science entities are using, deploying, or in the process of buying an ELN system, in a recent article in Scientific Computing World. The market research group estimates that 83% of all organizations have some interest in ELNs; 43% of those are "seriously considering a purchase, defining requirements, or evaluating systems."
Symyx's Nowak believes there will be dynamic growth over the next two to three years led by the large pharmaceutical companies. "The top ten pharma will have ELNs deployed enterprise-wide over the next five years," he says.
Once legal acceptance of electronic records was cited as a chief growth constraint of ELNs but several leading vendors believe this is waning. Still, only 20% of non users are comfortable with a completely electronic system for protecting their IP, though, the good news is that this is up from just 12% in 2005, according to Atrium Research. Vendors believe that the uptake of ELNs is just at the beginning stages now. Larson of EKM estimates market penetration at just about 5% at this time. Nowak of Symyx sees it at around 10%, adding that there are only two to three enterprise-wide systems in use now. Labtronics, which specializes in ELNs for QA/QC, sees market penetration as low as 2% in their area. "Everyone has to deal with quality questions but we are just at the beginning of the uptake now," says CEO Pavlis.
Larson says that integration is a constant problem that needs to be overcome. Part of the integration challenge arises out of the need to work seamlessly with versions of electronic notebooks developed in-house. Larson concedes that "the greatest competition is still from in-house ELN programs."
"Traditionally, ELNs have been very weak on integration. They have been designed as stand alone systems and this will continue as one of the long term problems faced by ELNs," says Pavlis. He notes that Labtronics has significant expertise in the integration of both large and small laboratory instruments. "We started out as integrators and are in a strong position in this area. This is one of our strengths, while others are struggling with this most of the time."
Related to this question is the convergence of different disciplines. Larson says that going forward there will greater confluence of biology and chemistry and there will be a bigger need for scientists to be able to handle more than one discipline on a single work station.
The are some 30 vendors making and selling ELNs now. Despite current double digit growth, the size of the market may be big enough to support all the players, says Nowak. This suggests that the field may see some consolidation. Nowak points out, "Symyx started the consolidation."
Pavlis says that the entry of Waters into the ELN market is indicative of future growth and believes they will be major player in ELNs for R&D. He adds, however, "With Waters there, a lot of smaller players will not survive. I won't be surprised to see a lot of consolidation among the companies that focus on ELNs for R&D."
Water's Martell says that ELNs will become more commonly used and expects larger adoption of his company's eLab notebooks over the next three or four years. Integration and interoperability will be critical, has says, adding, "The key question is why would there be a need for three or four different kinds?"
Bernard Tulsi is a freelance writer based in Newark, Delaware. He may be contacted at btulsi@comcast.net or by phone at 302-266-6420.
Company’s Other Products
Laboratory Equipment
Rockaway NJ 07866
|