Wednesday October 2009

Corporations are worried about "sensitive" files falling into the wrong hands. Should they not also be concerned about an insecure search engine that can expose, hundreds of such files to prying eyes? As search capabilities move out of applications and across the corporation, the potential for security breaches increases greatly. When implemented carelessly, search engines can uncover flaws in existing security frameworks and expose either restricted content itself or verify the existence of hidden information to unauthorised users. Imagine if employees searching on an agency’s intranet could find documents with passwords or social security numbers. There would be severe repercussions if search results reveal such sensitive information to the wrong person. This presentation addresses the security requirements necessary for an enterprise search solution.

Search engine security is a form of access control restricted to the context of a search application, ensuring that users can only access information they are permitted to see. The presentation examines the proper implementation of search engine security for an organisation, as well as giving tips and techniques on the approach to similar projects. Search engine security will continue to be one of the most challenging problems for corporations and this sheer complexity often requires a custom approach for each organisation. While there is no silver bullet, we describe a variety of security approaches to help organisations understand their needs, IT infrastructure and security goals in order to find the solution that fits best.

Integration of information from diverse sources in support of business needs is one of the key challenges currently faced by information services groups. Historically, data have been stored in stand-alone databases designed to support specific information requirements. While this strategy was optimal for the core user groups, it limits the re-use of the information and prevents the realisation of synergies obtainable from combining diverse data sources. If we are to obtain the maximum value from our data we need to develop both dynamic and static strategies that support the integration of data sources. The established approach to data integration traditionally involves some form of data warehousing and the building of formal ontologies, taxonomies, indexes, etc. This presentation illustrates with case examples a number of different approaches that have been used at Pfizer. In addition, it considers whether there may be an alternative approach and what we can learn from Web2.0 culture.

New technologies like taxonomy based categorisation or text mining enable information professionals to analyse efficiently large amounts of text information. Initially many of these technologies were developed for the analysis of business news and biological target interaction. Currently they are expanding to other life science relevant areas such as chemical or clinical information. Although the available applications have become powerful, there are still many problems to solve. This presentation highlights challenges as well as opportunities and compares the results with those we know from searching indexed databases.

This presentation begins by looking at the current situation in data integration in Pharmainformatics. It considers production workflows versus entity aggregation, the integration and exploitation of external data sources, and discusses and illustrates structured, unstructured and "thought-to-be" structured information. In conclusion, the presentation looks at some examples of successful integration and discusses future directions.

This is the era of social networking, collective intelligence, participation, collaborative creation, and borderless distribution. Every day we are bombarded with publicity about collaborative environments, newsfeeds, blogs, wikis, podcasting, webcasting, folksonomies, social bookmarking, social citations, collaborative filtering, recommender systems, media sharing, massive multiplayer online games, virtual worlds, and mash-ups. This sort of anarchic environment appeals to the digital natives, but which of these so-called “Web 2.0” technologies are going to have a real business impact on the chemical and pharmaceutical industries? How will the issues of quality control, spam, security and privacy impact the implementation of social networking in hide-bound, large organisations? This presentation will cut through the hype and make some predictions about information management in 2012.

The success of the pharmaceutical industry depends on the efficiency of the drug development process and the availability of new targets. In addition to small molecule drugs, the market for monoclonal antibodies is expanding, as are advances in recombinant and formulation technologies. There has been a shift in oncology. Cancers are no longer defined solely from the organ of origin, rather, the genetic changes to the complex pathways controlling signal transduction and cell cycle checkpoints. This shift parallels the emergence of “targeted therapies.” Targeted therapies inhibit pathways involved with the initiation or promotion of cancer or to promoted pathways involved with the apoptosis of cancer cells. Understanding what is in the various drug pipelines relating to targets is critical to informed decision making processes within companies.

Multiple drug pipeline databases play a key role in understanding the competitive landscapes. This paper discusses several case studies surveying the competitive landscape relative to the stage of drug development, focusing on the five leading drug pipeline databases: ADIS R&D Insight, IDDB, IMS R&D Focus, PharmaProjects, and Prous Integrity. Differences exist in coverage and content. Draw insights for your own research and access information critical to your collaborative decision making processes as your companies develop portfolios of innovative therapies. The paper concludes by offering explanations for differences in coverage and content, and shows how to connect the dots from the places where the information resides to the people who need it.