The Value of a Close Statistics/IT Relationship: A Case Study at Eli Lilly

• Activity Number: 146
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Monday, August 1, 2011 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Consulting
• Author(s): Todd Sanger*+
• Companies: Eli Lilly and Company
• Keywords: IT ; relationship ; SDD

Abstract

Within the pharmaceutical industry, the Statistics and IT organizations are tightly entwined. The Statisticians are very computer savvy and require special programs and IT systems to support their needs. With the explosion of data and subsequent high power computing needs around genomics and claims databases, many statisticians are forced to consider parallel computing and cloud computing to improve performance. Also, given the strict regulatory compliance demands, special computing environments are needed to maintain tight control and access to clinical data, programs, and results with appropriate traceability and electronic signatures. Given these special needs, it is important to have a close working relationship with IT. I will describe the history of the IT/Stat relationship at Lilly. I will particularly discuss how the two organizations worked successfully together to implement SAS Drug Development (SDD) at Lilly. Because of the success of this relationship, Lilly subsequently won a 2008 Bio-IT Best Practice Award for Clinical Research and a 2008 SAS Enterprise Intelligence Award for this implementation of SDD.