Three out of four life sciences companies polled in a recent survey said that their current documentation practices are inefficient.

The survey was conducted in November and focused on key areas of life sciences firms that are heavily involved with complex documentation practices, including labeling, clinical and nonclinical, regulatory, and medical affairs. More than 70 percent of respondents indicate that their biggest problems related to document formatting, recreating documents, and inefficient document review and approval processes.

“Many life sciences organizations rely on word processing formats like Word and Quark for their documentation because of [their] ease of use and composition,” says Mark Gross, president of Data Conversion Laboratory, which helped commission the survey. “However, as the demand for information grows due to an aging population, maturity of the Internet as an information source, FDA initiatives, etc., organizations are reporting a gap between their capabilities and requirements.”

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