In short, the answer is no. In fact, by implementing good practices and the right literature management tools to promote collaboration, copyright compliance, and access to scientific content from the very start, emerging companies can save themselves countless lost hours, operational headaches and inefficiencies later.
The global biotechnology and emerging life sciences market is a dynamic one. According to Grand View Research’s recent Biotechnology Market Size & Growth Trends Report, 2030, the global biotechnology market size is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.9% from 2022 to 2030. With new startups entering the market and existing biotechs expected to grow at such a rate over time, investing in tools early on that not only help employees find, access and manage scientific literature, but can easily scale to meet the growing needs of your company, will be essential.
And there are many benefits to starting early.
- Often times, funding is strongest at the onset. If there is ever a time when funding is less of a concern in an emerging life science company, it is early on when excitement and support from capital investors is more robust. So, when considering what operational tools are needed for different areas of the business (payroll, HR, etc.), don’t forget to consider how research and other teams will access and manage scientific literature, build this into your initial budgets, and invest early. As companies grow and learn, and funding starts to dry up, expenses are scrutinized more closely. So, making such tools a priority from the onset will help protect the investment later.
- Staffing and time are limited resources. Employees wear many hats and time is typically a startup’s most valuable but limited resource. The idea of a dedicated “information center or manager” is often non-existent for smaller companies. The right tools will help automate literature and reference management, allowing in-office and remote users alike the ability to easily sign on to a centralized, self-service system where and when they need it. This eases administrative burden, allowing more time for staff to focus on other high priority tasks, and streamlines the searching, accessing, ordering, and citing of scientific literature for all users to promote efficiency.
- Prevent information silos from developing. We all know the saying, garbage in, garbage out. If focus is not given to how employees will work together to share information and collaborate from the very beginning, it is far too easy for individuals to develop their own systems for accessing and storing scientific literature. This will surely inhibit collaboration, new discoveries in the research process, effective management of the regulatory process, and overall productivity in general. Instituting a centralized management tool for accessing and storing content will give employees across the entire organization better insight to available content and help avoid inefficiencies.
- Compliance is critical to startup life sciences companies. While much thought may be given from the start to establishing strong regulatory compliance, be sure to factor copyright compliance into the equation as well. It is not unusual for a startup or other small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to employ individuals newly transitioning from academic to corporate environments. Unfortunately, many bring with them old habits and misconceptions about the need to pay for access to and use of published scientific content for commercial purposes, having previously relied on academic credentials.
Additionally, rights associated with paid subscriptions and single article purchases are often only intended to cover use by the individual purchaser. Therefore, an annual copyright license is a great place to start and will provide additional rights covering millions of works that complement your existing subscriptions and publisher agreements to accelerate the compliant flow of information throughout the organization. The right literature management tool will not only integrate seamlessly with your license and provide an instant view into available rights to reuse and collaborate with published content but provide tools for additional copyright education and support as well. This is often not an area of expertise found in small, startup teams, so tools that help create awareness of and simplify copyright compliance are essential for building good practices and protecting the company from possible infringement.
- Get the most value from your content investments. Early on, many emerging life sciences companies build content plans including the scientific publications most relevant to their organization and users. By also implementing literature management software with built-in collaboration tools like shared libraries, rights management, and detailed reporting about your company’s content usage, you will quickly learn how to maximize the value of those content investments. In contrast, untracked, decentralized content purchases across the organization can hinder budgeting and forecasting, as well as collaboration and productivity.
- Establish a foundation that will scale with your company’s growing information needs. It is important to know that your literature management tool can easily add users as you add employee count. It is also beneficial to implement early, and easily add new subscriptions and content assets as you build your content plans. And when making a choice for a literature management tool, it may be difficult to think about what additional research needs your company might need next year, or five years down the road. However, if you implement the right tool when meeting more immediate needs like fast, secure access to scientific literature, you will also be primed to integrate additional capabilities like reference management, semantic enrichment, or even unified, aggregated search across all your company’s content resources.
CCC’s RightFind Enterprise is the fastest way to access, manage, and collaborate on scientific literature. RightFind Enterprise is a part of the RightFind Suite, a robust set of software solutions that fuel scientific research and simplify copyright, anytime, anywhere. Click here to learn more, or continue learning about meeting the needs of your emerging life sciences company with these related blog posts:
Working at a Life Science Startup? You Need a Copyright Policy (+ 6 Steps to Create One!)
Optimizing Culture and Information Management Webcast and Blog Series for Emerging R&D Organizations