“With Open XML, there’s no need for XML editing tools…. Authors can work in the word-processing environment that’s familiar to them and let Open XML take care of the metadata in the background.”

Ron Lacy, Client Partner, Intrasphere Technologies

Faced with the challenge of improving drug label content management for one of its flagship customers, Intrasphere Technologies chose the Open XML Formats for PharmaCM, its new structured content management solution. Intrasphere not only reduced its time-to-market, it also now can offer the ability to comply with government regulations more easily, a comfortable word-processing environment for label authors, and greater reuse of information.

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published October 2007


Business Needs

The pharmaceutical industry is under constant pressure to comply with government regulations that are designed to help protect patient safety and streamline operations for associated government agencies, such as the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products, and the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare. Intrasphere Technologies helps pharmaceutical companies and others in the life sciences industry adhere to regulations by providing business services and software solutions.

A continuing trend in the pharmaceutical industry is government agencies requiring companies to submit content in multiple formats that include XML. For example, the FDA mandates that all drug-labeling content be submitted in both XML and Microsoft®Office Word, which poses a challenge for content authors who lack XML skills.

Companies had to use an XML editing tool to edit the drug labels and rendering tools to try to convert an XML document into an OfficeWord document. However, they found it difficult to apply the exact desired formatting to Office Word documents. Many content authors had to devote a significant amount of manual effort to fix the rendered word-processing documents.

In June 2006, Intrasphere set out to find a better way for its customers to meet their structured content needs for labeling. “Accurately displaying both the content and format of drug-labeling information is critical to our customers,” says Ron Lacy, Client Partner for Intrasphere Technologies. “Our customers want to assemble and format labels at one time in a single location. Therefore, we looked for a technology that could support improved rendering of both XML and traditional printed documents.”

Intrasphere also had customers who needed to produce clinical trial protocol disclosure forms, and those medical knowledge workers encountered the same challenges as the labeling authors.

Solution

In August 2006, Intrasphere identified a potential solution: using Open XML Formats and Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007to support structured content management. Intrasphere developers in India took on the task of producing the new solution, and by December 2006, the company had a working prototype. Says Vinay Khubchandani, Lead Architect for Intrasphere Technologies, “Open XML is a self-describing XML format that allows easy conversion to other formats, including other XML formats. It’s great because it helps us embed our custom XML formats along with custom metadata inside the Open XML document. And being able to edit Open XML documents right inside a word-processing environment beats everything.”

The new solution, PharmaCM, can be configured to support a variety of structured content management processes—including clinical trial registries and drug labeling. PharmaCM provides an intuitive interface for generating and managing documents that are under the FDA’s Structured Product Labeling (SPL) requirement, and it includes embedded life-cycle management for multiple SPL document submissions. Authoring labels in PharmaCM is as straightforward as authoring in a word-processing program, but the solution ensures that all content is automatically converted to a valid XML label for submission. It also supports the creation of .pdf and .html renditions of the label document.

The same platform also provides an easy-to-use solution for managing clinical protocol registration. With PharmaCM, medical knowledge workers can download content directly from the clinicaltrials.gov Web site, compare and edit Open XML content, and improve the efficiency of their clinical protocol registration processes and overall quality control—all from within their familiar word-processing programs. “With Open XML, there’s no need for traditional XML editing tools and rendering software,” says Lacy. “Using our templates, authors can work in Microsoft Word and let Open XML take care of the metadata in the background.”

Benefits

Intrasphere now can offer its customers a solution that makes regulatory compliance easier and less time-consuming for users and provides a consistent way for pharmaceutical companies to share information across platforms and programs for greater reuse of information.

Easier regulatory compliance. PharmaCMsimplifies the process for submitting labels and securing government agency approval. “Pharmaceutical companies have to maintain multiple versions of the same content in different formats,” says Lacy, “but now, with Open XML, they’re able to create content only once and repurpose it across different label types, quickly and easily transforming it to satisfy agency standards.”

Increased user comfort. With PharmaCM, Intrasphere customers can provide a familiar, productive IT environment for their employees. “Label authors tend to be savvy users of word-processing programs, but dealing with XML tagging is a significant change for them,” says Lacy. “Our solution makes it possible for them to work within a comfortable word-processing environment to quickly and successfully deliver submission-ready documents.”

Enhanced knowledge sharing. Intrasphere is making it easier for its customers to reuse their existing data because the use of Open XML promotes interoperability. “Previously, information was locked inside whatever format a company used for capturing it,” says Lacy. “With structured content using Open XML, companies can search for and share content with departments that can use it for everything from marketing and promotions to packaging and Web site purposes.”

Faster time-to-market. Intrasphere needed only five months to develop and test its new solution, thanks in part to the speed of development using Open XML. “Open XML cuts development time by at least 50 percent—it gives us so many more options to achieve the required functionality in the most optimum way,” concludes Khubchandani.

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published October 2007