An early-stage life sciences or biotech company makes a breakthrough discovery and secures Series A funding to expand research. That’s when investors start asking about data security, compliance, and IT readiness. By Series B, when it is time to really scale and begin clinical trials, robust IT and security become essential to growth.
This is often the point when companies have turned to us for managed IT services. A managed approach provides the security, compliance, and scalability that early in-house setups can’t deliver on their own. It helps biotech and life sciences organizations meet due diligence requirements, handle the surge of research data, support automation, and avoid bottlenecks that slow clinical and commercial progress.
In this blog, we’ll explore the benefits of managed IT for biotech and life sciences companies as they grow, and the challenges it helps solve.
Common IT & security bottlenecks biotech and life sciences companies face
Rapid data growth:
As life sciences companies move to clinical trials and expand R&D, they generate and use a large volume of data from clinical trials, health records, experiments, and other sources. Managing these large and complex data sets requires scalable data storage and computing capabilities. Without a strong IT foundation, managing rapid data growth can become a significant challenge for life sciences companies.
Legacy and disconnected IT systems:
At the early stage, many life sciences companies start with basic lab software, local servers, or one-off digital tools. As the company starts to grow and accelerate clinical progress, these legacy and disconnected systems can create integration challenges, creating data silos, manual workarounds, and security gaps.
Security and compliance requirements:
As the data volume increases, so does the threat of cyberattacks. Life sciences companies are a favorable target for ransomware, supply chain attacks, and other breaches. A successful breach poses the risk of tampering, intellectual property theft, or damage to data integrity. All of this can hamper progress and raise concerns of data manipulation.
At the same time, companies are subject to several tight regulations such as HIPAA and FDA 21 CFR Part 11 guidance that make it necessary to have strong cybersecurity measures in place. Non-compliance can lead to penalties, legal repercussions, and risks to patient health.
All these challenges add complexity to fast-paced operations, which means that IT and security cannot be an afterthought. Building compliant systems in-house is complex and resource-heavy, and failing audits or due diligence can delay progress, put data at risk, and hurt credibility.
Limited in-house expertise
Many of the companies that have come to us for managed IT, including those in life sciences, had simply outgrown their existing setup. As operations expanded, they needed both additional manpower and deeper expertise to secure and modernize their IT infrastructure. In life sciences and biotech especially, limited in-house IT capacity often leads to security gaps, downtime, and inefficiencies at exactly the stage when scale and automation are critical for growth.
How Managed IT solves growth challenges for life sciences companies
Think of Managed IT providers like a swiss knife for your organization – they bring a range of capabilities, infrastructure support, and expertise to help you tackle multiple challenges at once.
Scalable cloud infrastructure
Many managed IT providers, like GraVoc, support cloud infrastructure with computing and data storage solutions that are scalable and reliable. This way, instead of scrambling to increase storage or servers, biotech and life sciences teams get secure, flexible platforms that can handle increasing clinical trial data, lab automation output, and analytics without slowing down research.
Enhanced security & compliance support
Managed IT brings built-in security frameworks, continuous monitoring, and compliance expertise aligned with regulations like HIPAA. For instance, GraVoc’s managed IT comes with an extensive solutions portfolio that includes tools for identity management, endpoint protection, security training, and managed threat detection and response.
With recent funding slowdowns in biotech and life sciences, IT security and compliance are more closely monitored. A proactive approach to security and compliance protects data and ensures readiness for audits or due diligence.
Infrastructure upgrade and integration expertise
Having worked with systems across multiple industries, managed IT providers bring deep expertise in technology, regulations, and integrations. They can integrate fragmented digital platforms, including lab systems, Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN), LIMS, and analytics platforms, and modernize legacy tools. This helps enhance security, eliminate data silos, and streamline research workflows.
Extend internal IT expertise:
Many life sciences and biotech companies start with smaller, in-house IT teams. As they start to grow, these limited IT resources are stretched thin, which can compromise speed and efficiency as companies try to ramp up automation and experiments. Managed IT provides a cost-effective way to augment internal support, handling repetitive or resource-intensive tasks.
Get Started with GraVoc’s Managed IT for Biotech & Life Sciences
Partnering with a managed IT provider like GraVoc equips your team with the security, compliance, and scalability needed to accelerate research, clinical trials, and commercialization.
Contact us today to start building an IT strategy that grows with your organization.