Agribusiness Global reached out to STARLIMS Chief Product and Marketing Officer Brandon Henning to discuss STARLIMS strategic acquisition of Labstep, the future of R&D, and what this means for the agrochemical industry.
ABG: What are you most excited for in the future of STARLIMS with the strategic acquisition of Labstep?
BH: We are most excited about our ability to serve our customers across more of their value chain. Traditional laboratory information management system (LIMS) vendors serve late-stage R&D through quality control and manufacturing, but do not support customers with early-stage innovation and product discovery.
With the addition of a full Electronic Lab Network (ELN), we can now support our customers from early-stage innovation all the way thorough product release from manufacturing. We will also be working to create a more robust Informatics Platform that supports the enhanced value chain.
ABG: What challenges within the agrochemical industry were you trying to address prior to this acquisition of your companies? How can you better address them now?
BH: We wanted to address the full cycle of R&D, which is difficult to do with a traditional LIMS. The addition of an ELN now enables us to serve that part of our customer’s journey. An Informatics Platform that addresses a brand owner’s full lifecycle from R&D to quality control in manufacturing through product release is a solution the market has been increasingly asking for.
A connected platform allows customers to get new products to market faster, which helps them increase revenue. A connected platform also provides the data needed to protect IP and more easily register products.
Accelerating New Product Introduction (NPI) is a core value that STARLIMS provides to customers, and the addition of the Labstep ELN will significantly enhance our ability to do that.