Corporate intelligence in biotechnology.
'Know thy neighbor' is a critical component of today's biotechnology practice. The industry is extremely rich in science and business information, and the pace of change is dramatic. Successful participation in biotechnology will always depend on good technology, management and money. In addition, an ingredient that needs more attention is competitive information- gathering and analysis. Competitive intelligence can be defined as actionable information that requires the ability to filter and synthesize relevant knowledge for the benefit of the company. Why is this necessary? How can it be done well? What examples are there? These are good questions that are inevitably faced by all biotechnology practitioners, and some answers are provided herein.
Multinational pharmaceutical companies gather in Berlin.
The 39th Annual General Meeting of the Pharma Documentation Ring (PDR) was held in Berlin, Germany, on September 26, 1997. Common themes reported on included the impact and widespread use of intranet technology; expansion in end-user searching; experience with electronic journals; and programs for the development of electronic archiving and document management systems. Other sessions discussed aspects of chemistry systems; copyright; drug information systems on development products; information management, in-house management of databases; Intranet/Internet activities; and patents. The core topic presented at the meeting involved an overview on document delivery/electronic journals. There is considerable activity in this area by primary and secondary publishers with real momentum seen in the area of electronic document delivery services on the Internet. The 40th anniversary of the PDR will be celebrated at the upcoming AGM, to be held in Montpellier, France, September 30 October 2, 1998.
Overview of Activities of the PDR
The number of records in online and other databases has increased 100% every 4 years since 1983.8 In addition, between 1987 and 1991, the number of online searches conducted via the most important U.S. host computers doubled to 40 million per year.8 To help tackle the volume of scientific literature in the biomedical area in a systematic way, the five PDR companies, besides generating and exchanging top-quality abstracts, also developed Ringcode,9 which combines structural fragmentation codes and a system for biomedical concepts, initially designed for punched cards that were exchanged among the member companies. This system was in fact one of the first mechanized documentation tools.