The challenge: a mission-critical shared IT environment
“It’s not enough for a treatment to simply exist,” says Nohad Laamim, Chief Digital Officer at Univercells. “To really make a difference, we need to make it accessible to anyone. First and foremost, we must drive down the cost of production through technology. Our approach is twofold: on the one hand, we develop innovative biomanufacturing equipment that enables low-cost, low-footprint, and high-quality biologics production. On the other hand, we provide therapy innovators with access to expertise and manufacturing capacity, from the pre-clinical phase to commercial ‘good manufacturing practice’ or GMP.”
Each of the 5 affiliate companies completes a specific piece of this complex puzzle. As the holding company, Univercells provides centralized services, including IT and digital services, ranging from service desk and data analytics to larger digital transformation projects, such as laboratories’ digitalization and SAP implementation. But since each entity has its own value proposition, unique requirements, and level of process maturity, alignment and harmonization are quite challenging.
“Running the same technology is essential to secure a decent level of governance (for finance, supply chain, quality),” Nohad explains. It also ensures a smooth data flow for better visibility and steering, and helps keep the IT costs in check. Moreover, our affiliates need a powerful and scalable IT environment to stay ahead in a very competitive field. That’s why we had to move as fast as possible from a basic ERP to a more robust cloud solution with a wide range of capabilities, including GxP compliance.” "