Earlier this week, our team of life sciences experts attended the Veeva R&D and Quality Summit 2024 in Boston, Massachusetts. This event brought together professionals across Clinical, Quality, Manufacturing, Regulatory, and Safety business functions to explore emerging trends and product innovations shaping the future of the life sciences industry. We highlight the most important insights from the Veeva R&D and Quality Summit below. 

Takeaways from the Veeva R&D and Quality Summit 2024 

1. Unification of Process and Data 

Veeva confirmed their LIMS Vault offering had entered Phase 2, with live environments in use and that the Batch Release Vault is now available for early adopters. This adds to the existing Vault products available for all customers across Clinical, Quality, Regulatory, Safety, Medical, and Commercial. Veeva’s renewed focus on connectedness of processes and data between its vaults, as well as allowing enhanced external access with partners and suppliers, makes Veeva’s Quality offerings a true end-to-end solution within the QMS space. Many clients experience pain points of working in siloed systems and having to create complex integrations between them to ensure their systems are harmonized and compliant, and Veeva has proven success in addressing this.

2. Intentional Digitalization 

Utilizing SaaS models will innately move an organization to a more paperless model; however, Veeva is striving to be intentional in that approach. Taking the approach of a one-for-one replacement of paper forms into eForms can present new challenges – such as additional burden through electronic approvals or additional hardware requirements to support scanning – and does not always provide the efficiency and value expected. Focusing on high-value cases for digitization can mitigate much of this burden. 

3. Over-Customization Can be a Mixed Blessing 

Veeva provides the flexibility to configure workflows to exactly match existing business processes, which may initially provide value through optimized compliance. However, the increased complexity can create a design that impedes the organization’s ability to take full advantage of future enhancements. Firms adopting the platform—particularly those moving in for the first time—should seize the opportunity to rethink legacy processes in the context of efficiency and scale as they seek to get the most from their critical technology investments. As Veeva has grown, a focus on incorporating customer feedback into their product roadmaps and applying industry best practices to their out of the box (OOB) solutions has allowed many customers to simplify their existing configurations within their vaults. 

4. Set Appropriate GenAI Goals 

Generative AI technology and tools have garnered much interest over the last few years; however, they should not be the default solution utilized for all processes and problems. Regular, pre-defined automation is still relevant and can often provide a simpler, more efficient result for many specific use cases. Better understanding the challenges of adopting GenAI (e.g. complex data sourcing, costly scaling) the key features it provides, as well as the things at which GenAI excels (e.g. text generation & translation, data augmentation) will be critical for navigating the business strategy and product roadmaps. 

Looking Ahead 

Veeva is continuing to innovate in their space, with new offerings on the horizon that are expected to be added to their already impressive portfolio of Vaults, making them a true end-to-end vendor for our clients. As one of Veeva’s certified partners to help implement and manage their platform, Clarkston can be confident that Veeva’s vision and product roadmap are aligned with what our clients want to see. 

To chat more about the 2024 Veeva R&D and Quality Summit or emerging trends in the Veeva space, reach out to one of our experts today.   

Contributions from David Lin