Lifeboat Foundation

Data serves as the foundation of today’s biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, and that foundation keeps expanding. “The appreciation of the value of data and need for quality data has grown in recent years,” says Anastasia Christianson, PhD, vice president and global head of AI, machine learning and data, Pfizer. She notes that the concept of FAIR data—Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable data¹—is becoming more widely accepted and more closely achieved.

Part of the transition in data use arises almost philosophically. “There has been a cultural shift or mindset change from data management for the purpose of storage and archiving to data management for the purpose of data analysis and reuse,” Christianson explains. “This is probably the most significant advance. The exponential growth of analytics capabilities and artificial intelligence have probably raised both the expectations for and appreciation of the value of data and the need for good data management and data quality.”