Supply Chain Technology, Real-Time Quality System Win Microsoft Awards

Microsoft Corporation (Redmond, WA, www.microsoft.com/lifesciences)announced the winners of the Microsoft Pharmaceuticals and LifeSciences Innovation Awards 2006 at this year's meeting of the DrugInformation Association (www.diahome.org) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Afour-person panel of industry experts selected winners for theinnovative use of Microsoft products in pharmaceutical and lifesciences business processes and practices.

Awards were given in three categories: sales and marketing,manufacturing and supply, and clinical development. Themanufacturing segment had two winners:

• To reduce errors in its largest supply chain, Altana Pharma AG (Konstanz, Germany, www.altanapharma.com)installed Wassermann AG's "wayRTS" (real-time simulation) technology, a64-bit application using "Windows Server 2003," "Visual Studio 2005,""Visual SourceSafe," and "Microsoft Office 2003." The system is usedfor operational supply-chain planning, simulation, and schedulingacross three production sites and eight sales units. According to thecompany, the wayRTS technology makes process schedules more reliableand more stable, thus reducing time spent rescheduling or planningproduction sequences.

• Pfizer Inc. (New York,NY, www.pfizer.com)developed the "Catalyst" real-time quality system to help industryworkers design, schedule, and analyze pharmaceutical manufacturingprocesses using a graphical user interface in less time than existingelectronic and manual systems require. While the engineer designs theprocess, the system calculates design data such as material balances,time-cycle analysis, and environmental emissions, as well asautomatically configures shop floor execution and reporting systems.The system uses ".NET," "BizTalk Server," "SQL Server," and"SharePoint" portal server.

Other winners were GlaxoSmithKline (Mississauga, ON, Canada,

www.gsk.com

) in thesales and marketing category for its "Tablet PC," which reduces thecycle time between a new product marketing campaign launch andmeasuring its results, and PRA International (Reston, VA,

www.prainternational.com

)in the clinical development category for its "FlexDMS" data-management system to help users design a clinical study; collect thedata either through paper data entry, electronic data capture, or acombination of formats; and manage the data using the same system.