Arkivum: A-Stor Pharma Digital Archive

Arkivum Limited, the archiving specialist, has launched A-Stor Pharma, a digital data archiving service developed to meet the needs of the healthcare and life sciences industries.

A-Stor Pharma is a managed and scalable cloud storage service that integrates with the customer’s existing infrastructure and allows them to keep valuable data secure for the long term.
 
It enables life sciences companies to become compliant with industry regulations, such as the 21CFR Part 11 and GMP Annex 11 guidelines. It is suited to bio-technology, clinical trial management and pharmacovigilance businesses, where records need to be stored for extended periods of time, but remain accessible at short notice.
 
Jim Cook, CEO at Arkivum, explained: "Life sciences and large pharmaceutical organisations are experiencing explosive growth in data volumes. This data, typically generated from Trial Master Files (TMF), Next Generation Sequencing, LIMS, GMP, Microarrays and CTMS systems often needs to be stored for up to three generations. This means the cost of primary storage is becoming an ever increasing management challenge. A digital archiving service such as A-Stor Pharma provides a viable and cost-effective alternative while guaranteeing the integrity of the data should it need to be accessed in the future."
 
FDA regulation 21 CFR Part 11 and EU GMP Annex 11 require all electronic records to be protected and offer proven authenticity, while remaining easy to retrieve throughout the mandatory data retention period. Arkivum offers transparency in the processes, technologies and facilities it uses to store data. A-Stor Pharma operates as an open system and by integrating end-to-end checksum technologies, is able guarantee authenticity, confidentiality and data integrity.
 
Daniel Watkins, head of operations and infrastructure at Institute of Reproductive Sciences – Oxford Fertility Unit, said: "Security is of key importance to our business, Arkivum’s A-Stor Pharma service allows us to store our encrypted data for the long term in a cost efficient way that is entirely scalable and reduces pressure on our internal IT infrastructure. Moreover, using electronic records allows us to work much more efficiently, and the A-Stor service ensures we can access that data at short notice, as and when it is required."
 
A-Stor Pharma uses LTO/LTFS data tape technology, which costs less than half the price of keeping data on in-house SAN solutions. It also reduces a customer’s power consumption and heat generation. Arkivum an archiving solution to guarantee data integrity; three copies of the data are maintained at all times – two in Arkivum’s data centres and one held offline in a third party escrow service. This low-risk approach offers security to customers, yet does not impact upon accessibility. An A-Stor gateway appliance featuring drag and drop functionality is available on the customer’s own network, enabling quick and simple search and retrieval of data within five minutes.
 
For organisations required by law or regulation to store all information onsite, Arkivum offers OSCAR (On-Site Cloud Archive), a cloud archiving solution. The remotely managed, all-in-one pod solution provides the same data integrity promise and level of service as A-Stor Pharma, but within a corporate firewall.