Short Takes

Deacom, Inc. (Wayne, PA) has announced a project win at Supplemental Manufacturing and Ingredients, LLC (Tempe, AZ) to deploy its Integrated Accounting and ERP System to “facilitate the company’s entrance into the pharmaceutical industry,” according to a Deacom announcement.

Another ERP developer for small- to mid-size life sciences companies, Compiere (Redwood Shores, CA) will be installing its open-source-based ERP at 3A Pharma, a Vietnam-based distributor of Abbott Laboratories products in the region.

Infor (Alpharetta, GA) has announced that Qualicaps Europe has purchased a maintenance contract to update its ERP implementation to the latest version of Infor’s ERP LX system. Qualicaps is also deploying Infor EAM (enterprise asset management) in its manufacturing plants.

But the big news in pharma ERP is that Pfizer has decided to convert to SAP, rather than ripping out Wyeth’s long-established SAP infrastructure, after the merger became official in late October, according to industry sources. No official announcement has been made as yet. The decision, if final, holds no little irony as Pfizer has been called an “SAP killer” for having shut down SAP implementations at previously acquired companies.

Customer relationship management Veeva Systems (Pleasanton, CA) has scored three recent wins in adopting its software-as-a-service CRM solutions: PDI, Inc. (Saddle River, NJ), the contract sales organization; Adamas Pharmaceuticals (Emergyville, CA), a small-molecule pharma developer; Accera Inc. (Broomfield, CO), a neuroscience company. Veeva is providing VBioPharma in various configurations, VMobile (for mobile communications) and VInsights, for CRM business intelligence.

Performance management

Ther-Rx (Bridgton, MO), a specialty pharma company, has chosen the Performance Management system of Verix (Mountain View, CA) for advanced analytics, reporting and dashboards for the entire Ther-Rx sales, marketing and managed care groups. The system is available in on-premises and SaaS versions.

An unnamed major pharma company has selected the SPM (sales performance management) system of Callidus Software (San Jose, CA), which manages sales on-boarding, quota and plan deployment, and payment.

Regulatory compliance Cegedim Dendrite (Bedminster, NJ) says that a leading biopharma company has selected its State Guardian solution for monitoring and reporting marketing expenditures (aggregate spending) in various states. The system is available in on-premises and SaaS versions; this client will be deploying the SaaS version which allows for ongoing updates of evolving regulations.

Axway (Phoenix) has updated to version 3.0 of its Track & Trace system, and also announced that it is the first IT vendor to have won GS1 EPCglobal certification for using the AS2 communications protocol under GS1’s EPCIS standard. AS2 is an established protocol for exchanging business information, while EPCIS is the evolving standard gaining traction among pharma companies establishing track-and-trace systems to monitor serialized products as they move through the supply chain.

Sparta Systems (Holmdel, NJ) has announced that SSL International, a consumer and healthcare goods company, has gone live with a global implementation of its TrackWise enterprise quality management system for quality control, corrective and preventive action (CAPA) management and document control (Pharmaceutical Commerce, October, p. 1). PC