Security, control of data seen as key barriers to cloud adoption by pharma

From improved access to data to the ability to streamline operations and reduce costs, cloud technology offers many potential benefits for the life sciences and pharmaceutical industry, but barriers to adoption still persist.

One challenge is continued resistance by a substantial percentage of executives who think it’s never possible to safely store sensitive data in the cloud.

That’s the point of view of Jonathan Armstrong, a technology and compliance lawyer at London-based legal services firm Cordery, who noted there is resistance from hospital administrators and also from patients.

Local laws that prohibit transfer and access of data by non-healthcare professionals are another issue Armstrong highlighted, particularly in privacy-centric countries in Europe.

“You can’t really have a one-size-fits-all solution because local law might intervene, but also because different apps may have different data security risks,” he noted.

Armstrong said another challenge for pharmaceutical companies deploying cloud technology is that a lot of vendors of cloud-based solutions are misleading in their literature.