Why your labs need to focus on operational efficiency and sustainability

Traditionally, laboratory operations have been a core solution center for R&D and service to the business for commercial products (quality control testing). The cost to discover, develop, and bring drugs to market, along with ensuring the quality and efficacy of marketed drugs, is factored into drug pricing. In the U.S., there were no price controls for prescription drugs, not even for federal programs. With the IRA, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) can negotiate the most expensive single-source branded drugs covered under Medicare Part D (effective in 2026). As a result, drug manufacturers can gain more control of their pricing by making lab research and testing operations more efficient. This allows them to release their products to market faster, reducing overall costs. 

In addition to pricing controls, the IRA stipulates that drug companies must pay rebates if they raise prices faster than the inflation rate. The IRA was designed to reduce the government and beneficiaries’ liability for drug spending, shifting the burden to pharmaceutical companies. As part of this program, there will be a hard cap ($2,000 in 2024), which beneficiaries will have no cost share upon reaching. Furthermore, drug companies must provide a 10% discount on brand-name drugs in the initial coverage phase of the benefit and a 20% discount after the cap. In addition to drug pricing mandates, the IRA will also provide incentives for clean energy and bonus credits for meeting requirements to use materials produced in the U.S. These mandates make it critical for lab executives and managers to implement both optimization and sustainability measures to manage costs and accumulate credit where possible; combined, these will help counteract increasing pricing constraints.

3 strategies to decrease your laboratory operating costs 

Connected smart labs leveraging IoT, robotics, and automation

The functional lab footprint of the future is rapidly decreasing. Bobby Savarese, a Principal at Unispace Life Sciences who designs new laboratory spaces, states that in 2024, new laboratory construction aims to achieve cost reductions, expedited drug delivery, and carbon neutrality, all within a more compact operational space. Part of cost savings and more sustainable lab operations comes from adopting smart labs or the concepts of Manufacturing 5.0 applied in the lab space. Industry 5.0 is marrying the advanced technology of AI, automation, big data, robotics, IoT and machine learning with human capabilities to create a more resilient and sustainable lab production operation. In the lab, this translates to IoT devices used for real-time monitoring of equipment, processes, and conditions (i.e., environmental monitoring such as air, water, surfaces, etc.). These devices allow for automated sampling and display test results so that analysts can continue focusing on material and drug testing. In contrast, IoT devices monitor conditions to alert staff when numbers become outside the set range.

Robotics has also greatly improved lab testing speeds by supporting sample preparation and loading. Additionally, lab scheduling tools help analysts and scientists plan and schedule lab equipment based on traditional planning algorithms. This work is often done in spreadsheets but is now possible via Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) solutions, similar to Advanced Planning Systems (APS) for the manufacturing production line, but designed for lab needs. In the past, if you needed a lab-specific planning and scheduling application, you would have to build one from scratch or automate your spreadsheet. However, this still did not incorporate manufacturing or any upstream vendor data, which is now possible with core lab planning tools that interface with enterprise resource planning (ERP) and laboratory information management systems (LIMS). This also provides lab production simulation (or digital twinning of the lab). This capability helps lab managers understand how new protocols and products can most effectively be incorporated into the lab testing schedule to maintain target throughput and cycle times.

Collaborative platforms and augmented reality

Another strategy for laboratory optimization is using collaborative platforms to share data amongst scientific teams in real time to understand test results or study data faster. Moving data off lab and testing equipment to be stored, mined and analyzed in cloud native formats provides better democratization of test results and experiment data. Traditionally, lab data was generated on equipment with proprietary data formats, making it challenging to move, store, and manipulate outside the vendor ecosystem. Still, increasingly more vendor-agnostic data tools are available and in use across the life science lab space. This supports faster and broader analysis across lab teams, especially when the result of one lab test is used as the starting point for a subsequent downstream test. The wait times across this dependency can be drastically reduced or eliminated with collaborative data and analysis tools that alert the downstream lab of results.

We also see augmented reality (AR) use in labs, most commonly for training on complex protocols, equipment setup or sample preparation (when samples and reagents are limited and expensive). AR is also used for troubleshooting equipment issues with an expert service engineering team who may not be onsite or able to get to the lab facility quickly enough to save samples/preparation from needing to be scrapped. Remote VR equipment setup, run support, and maintenance enable faster test results, quicker analyst/scientist onboarding, and less equipment downtime.

Sustainability and green IT

Sustainable lab practices come in many forms, including minimizing disposable waste, reducing energy consumption of equipment, including freezers, incubators, and autoclaves (when possible) and regular cleaning of lab equipment to ensure it’s running as efficiently as possible. Some best practices we’ve helped implement include understanding the energy demands of equipment (watts used per day) and, when possible, trying to combine samples across batches to optimize run size. Switching to glass from plastics can help support minimizing landfill waste, shutting off or unplugging equipment if it will not be in regular use, shutting fume hoods fully when not in use, changing filters regularly, cleaning coils on refrigeration units annually and regularly checking seals on temperature-controlled storage units.

We see an early trend in the laboratory space for more energy-efficient equipment and software solutions as labs shift to higher levels of robotics and automation to fulfill higher volume output. Although the offerings for green IT - maximizing energy efficiency when designing lab software and selecting computer chips - in the lab space are limited today, major equipment suppliers have begun to market products in the space with companies that support the reuse and sharing of lab disposables, reagents and equipment across a specific network. Perhaps your wet chemistry labs in a specified region that are doing similar testing on like platforms can have a view on shared inventory and leverage each other’s resources to avoid spoilage or expiry.

CGI can help expedite lowering your lab operating costs

CGI supports your lab initiatives with a skilled team of “laboratory operations advocates” (LOAs) who are former lab managers, QC managers, and research scientists trained in lab digitization and automation. These practitioners allow your scientists and lab analysts to focus on their studies and testing while driving your strategic lab initiatives. We can run programs in parallel with regular testing and experimentation work with minimal disruption because our team of experts has the lab experience and implementation knowledge of lab application capabilities – including Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS), Electronic Laboratory Notebooks (ELN), Scientific Data Management Systems (SDMS), robotics and automation. Therefore, they can quickly present your team with solutions based on your requirements, equipment and test procedures.

We work across the laboratory landscape, from research to commercial and outsourced testing, including CROs, TICs and CDMOs, to help accelerate your programs and provide a perspective on laboratory best practices. If you’d like to chat more about your lab optimization initiatives or discuss what we see across the space within our current portfolio, connect with us.