Legal Tech for Life Science Companies

Life science companies operate in a world of complexity that far outpaces the average business. From pharmaceuticals to food technology, these organizations generate enormous volumes of contracts while tirelessly working to improve human health and well-being. This intensifies the need for robust, efficient contract management, and unfortunately, many firms may procrastinate until they can no longer keep up with the chaotic tide of contracts.

This is where contract lifecycle management (CLM) comes in. In this blog, we'll discuss why life science companies need to embrace legal tech and how it can revolutionize their contract management processes.

CLM solutions eliminate one-off contract generation, support smart templating, move static files into the cloud, and apply artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to understand and query contract language. As CLM adoption grows, leaders reduce time-consuming admin work, minimize file and versioning chaos, and accelerate commercial agreement turnaround. CLM software is a comprehensive solution that oversees every phase of a contract – from initiation and execution to renewal. It covers a broad gamut of processes associated with contract life cycle, including drafting, negotiation, tracking, dispute management, auditing, and archiving, among others.

Imagine a pre-clinical phase biopharma company generating over 150 contracts per quarter – from manufacturing to toxicology and consulting agreements. With such a hefty contract load, even a small operations team can quickly become overwhelmed. But thanks to CLM solutions, they can streamline their contracting experience and stay on top of their commitments.

Legal technology streamlines workflows for life science companies

Legal technology should assist by creating, executing, and managing contracts – helping with drafting and finalizing contracts, overseeing signatures, storing executed agreements, and extracting key contract data. Effective CLM solutions also enable insights into spend and contract risks and reduce administrative work.

For one life science company, founded in 2001 and headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas, ProPharma Group is the leading global, single-source provider of regulatory, clinical, and compliance services serving pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device companies. ProPharma offers services across six lines of business, including regulatory affairs, pharmacovigilance, medical information, and clinical research solutions, all with the goal of improving patient health and safety. To streamline the process, ProPharma is creating templates in LinkSquares Finalize for their key contracts, including CDAs, master service agreements, statements of work, and purchase orders. By templating their key agreements, their legal team can ensure each of their highly technical agreements contains necessary language, along with key provisions critical to complying with data privacy regulations like GDPR.

Let's take a look at some of the benefits of CLM for life science companies:

Contract organization: CLM allows biotech, pharmaceutical, and other life science firms to categorize and classify signed contracts, improving speed-to-market and compliance. It allows for faster tracking of budgets, consumption, and milestone payouts while creating searchable, reportable, and repositories.

Commitment insights: CLM extracts crucial information from every contract, transforming static data into actionable insights. With Smart Values, LinkSquares automatically extracts over 115+ key pieces of contract data, helping users find what they need in seconds.

Reuse expert language: Efficient biotech firms reuse expertly drafted contract clause language. Modern CLM provides preferred language for easy inclusion in new contracts and templates.

Accelerate deals: To capitalize on M&A opportunities, biotech firms need immediate access to key clauses, terms, and other contract data. AI-powered insights in CLM platforms facilitate this.

De-risk third-party agreements: Many biotech contracts are on third-party paper. CLM solutions help manage third-party contracts, automate review processes, and expose non-standard clauses and hidden liabilities.

Simple to deploy: The right CLM solution is easy to implement without a prolonged, complicated setup period.

In short, adopting CLM solutions like LinkSquares can drive your biotech company forward faster, delivering better contracts, quicker deals, and comprehensive insights into every contract. Find out how.