A new cloud service for the life sciences sector

COSMO CONSULT group has launched COSMO CLOUD for Business Central, a new product that provides companies with a one-stop shop for all the services they need from business solutions to cloud services. What this means for customers is that they can deal with a single company and can also rely on secure, seamlessly documented processes. The life sciences division of the software and consulting company COSMO CONSULT has certified the cloud service in accordance with the strict regulations of the industry. This makes it much easier for companies in sectors such as pharmaceuticals and medical technology to move their IT infrastructure to the cloud and benefit from the secure, flexible service with high levels of availability.

If you want to use business solutions as a service from the cloud, you quickly discover that most hosting providers are only concerned with the infrastructure but have no connection to the software solutions and business processes operating on it. It may be impossible to implement separate agreements on the security level, location of the data or level of availability, for example, or there may be limits on doing so. COSMO CLOUD for Business Central is completely different in that regard: the new, recently launched cloud service of the COSMO CONSULT Group is a one-stop shop, giving users access to all services - whether business applications or cloud services. A private cloud like this is particularly interesting for companies from sensitive sectors such as the pharmaceutical industry and medical technology. They need maximum transparency regarding the IT systems they use in order to meet the demanding requirements in terms of legal security and documentation.

Because all IT-related processes are bundled in COSMO CLOUD for Business Central, they can be documented seamlessly. COSMO CONSULT LS GmbH, a life sciences specialist, used this situation to certify the cloud service for IT projects in the sector. This means that the software and consulting company is now in a position to offer customers in the life sciences and medical technology sectors individually tailored services. This includes, above all, the ERP system Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and complementary industry-specific and special solutions. "Many small and medium-sized businesses are open to moving to the cloud. This is especially true because critical data is better protected by specialists than it is on a company’s own servers. However, the associated quality and documentation requirements overwhelm many companies", explains Oliver Benecke, Director Sales Life Science at COSMO CONSULT LS GmbH. Thanks to the certification, it is possible to provide the necessary documentation. "This is how we are paving the way to the cloud for these companies," adds Benecke.

During the certification process for the life sciences sector, processes and working methods were first logged and documented. The experts then reviewed whether they conformed with the requirements of ISO 9001 or FDA 21 CFR Part 11. The required data was collected in the course of a complex on-site audit and by means of a detailed supplier questionnaire. "As a business software provider for the life sciences sector, we have to document not only our own processes, but also how we cooperate with our suppliers. In a qualitative assessment, the entire process is always what is crucial - no matter how many companies are involved," Benecke emphasizes.

COSMO CLOUD for Business Central also represents an opportunity for lean companies and start-ups in the medical technology sector, because their IT systems must comply with the strict Medical Device Regulation (MDR) of the EU by May 2021 at the latest. The technical basis for this is provided by Microsoft Azure Cloud Services. Not only the business applications of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 product family, but also Microsoft Office 365 and document and quality management systems run on Azure.