Tag: technology

Science Center and Alira Health Establish Strategic Partnership to Accelerate MedTech Commercialization

Chris Cantz

PHILADELPHIA, PA – The University City Science Center, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit with over 60 years of experience advancing the commercialization of promising technologies, and Alira Health, a leading international healthcare and life sciences advisory firm, are joining forces to support Philadelphia-based life sciences and medical technology startups.

Through this partnership, Alira Health will leverage its expertise and deep connections within the healthcare and life sciences industry to support Science Center portfolio companies including members of the ic@3401 incubator and the Launch Lane cohort. Alira Health will offer a suite of advisory support, including expertise related to regulatory and clinical affairs, market access, reimbursement, in addition to health economics and outcomes research (HEOR).

“The Science Center’s partnership with Alira Health is a significant value-add for our portfolio companies, enabling them to more efficiently transition their technologies into the marketplace,” says Science Center President & CEO, Tiffany Wilson. “As we push further into the MedTech space, gaining access to Alira Health’s expertise is a win for Philadelphia’s life sciences ecosystem and positions our companies for the best chance of success.”

“Our partnership with the Science Center reinforces our commitment to fostering entrepreneurs in the development of innovative technologies in MedTech,” said David Uffer, Senior Partner and VP of MedTech, Alira Health. “The suite of programs they have developed to further their mission of supporting companies on their path to commercialization is exemplary in the Greater Philadelphia market. We are pleased to offer our practice leaders across our service offerings to advance this effort.”

In addition to individualized pro bono support of Science Center portfolio companies, David Uffer will hold office hours at the June 17th Venture Café Thursday Gathering focused on the MedTech sector. More info here.

The Science Center offers a suite of commercialization programs that are collectively designed to identify, support, and commercialize the most promising technologies. Supporting life sciences, MedTech, and tech-enabled startups, the Science Center helps put teams into place, identify early resources, and connect founders with its vast network of academic and research institutions and industry partners. Over the last ten years, the Science Center has supported over 600 startups and invested $13.4 million with over $1 billion raised in follow-on funds.

About the Science Center
Located in the heart of uCity Square, the Science Center is a mission-driven nonprofit that commercializes promising technology, cultivates talent and convenes people to inspire action. For over 50 years, the Science Center has supported startups, research, and economic development across the emerging technology sectors. As a result, Science Center-supported companies account for one out of every 100 jobs in the Greater Philadelphia region and drive $13 billion in economic activity in the region annually. By providing the right help at the right time, the Science Center is turning bright ideas into businesses and nurturing a workforce to support our 21st century economy. Visit sciencecenter.org to learn more.

About Alira Health
Alira Health is an international advisory firm on the frontlines of healthcare transformation. They provide a suite of integrated services designed to help healthcare and life science companies innovate and grow across their solutions lifecycle.

Alira Health was founded in 1999 and is based in Framingham, MA, U.S. Offices are located in San Francisco, CA, U.S.; Paris, France; Barcelona, Spain; Munich, Germany; Milan, Italy; and Basel and Geneva, Switzerland.

Learn more at https://www.alirahealth.com/.

The need for Next-gen technologies in the BFS sector

Amanda Nardi

Contributed by Cigniti. 

With user experience as the central purpose of the transformation, the BFS industry is gearing up and accelerating the digitization of their core operational activities.

As per a report, 75 to 80 percent of transactional operations (e.g., general accounting operations, payments processing) and up to 40 percent of more strategic activities (e.g., financial controlling and reporting, financial planning and analysis, treasury) can be automated. The BFS digital transformation is being propelled by the introduction of next-generation technologies including Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Big data & Analytics, and Smart contracts.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the sector to take immediate measures for ensuring that everything is running smoothly, the transformation is still a high priority and is expected to be addressed as soon as the situation normalizes.

The Everest Group, in their recent article about the impact of COVID-19 outbreak on the BFS sector, suggested, “As an immediate response to the current situation, designing and executing customer assistance programs should be the top priority for BFS firms. In the medium term, the firms’ focus should gradually shift to modernization of legacy systems that slowed down banks’ agility and ability to respond to this crisis. Post COVID-19, BFS firms will need to reimagine their products, pricing, and channel strategies to fulfill evolved customers’ expectations.”

The next-gen technologies coupled with DevTestOps and Quality Engineering practices enable the industry to deliver quality services at speed. We talked about the integration of banking and financial services sector with these advanced technologies for leading them on the road of innovation, productivity, and user-centricity in our new blog. Read it here.

In our very first Virtual Round Table Conference, we have gathered four eminent industry leaders who will talk about how exactly the next-gen technologies help the BFS sector realize quality at speed. Join Ritesh Jain (COO, CTO, Former Head of Digital Technology at HSBC), Dr. David A. Bishop (CEO & Founder at Agile Worx), Avik Ganguly (Director of Engineering, DevOps, & Quality at London Stock Exchange), and Nanda Padmaraju (Senior Vice President at Cigniti Technologies) as they engage in an insightful discussion about the adoption of next-gen technologies in the Banking and Financial Services sector. Register for the virtual conference now to get your free access.

Building a truly Agile enterprise with QA

Amanda Nardi

Contributed by Cigniti Technologies.

The clarion call to embrace digital transformation is accelerating the pace of software development. Development teams are under pressure to deliver software quickly in response to increasing customer demand. However, going to the market as a first-mover can backfire if your software is not quality-compliant. In a technology-driven world where customer experiences have become the final differentiator in staying competitive, QA is integral to the development pipeline. If your enterprise is not delivering digital experiences of high quality, you risk becoming alienated from the end-users. Further, your market reputation can be damaged and market share lost should your software turn out to be bug-infested. Surprisingly, to beat the competition, enterprises often resort to transforming their software development and delivery processes without prioritizing software quality assurance.

As a result, QA teams are often stuck with ineffective and legacy solutions that are part of the waterfall model. So, as long as enterprises use the waterfall model, their digital transformation journey is bound to remain incomplete. This is due to the fact that in the traditional software development process where software QA testing is done at the end of development and integration, there can be issues galore. The reasons for the issues to remain entrenched in the software are as follows:

  • In the waterfall model of quality assurance and testing, bugs often remain unidentified due to the constraints of manual testing.
  • Since manual testing is taxing for the software quality assurance services, especially concerning repeated regressive testing, testers can falter in testing every piece of code.
  • The scope of testing gets reduced, especially when it comes to testing the code on a slew of platforms, browsers, devices, and networks.
  • In case any bugs are identified, the cost and time required for their removal can be huge. This is because the process would then entail unscrambling the integrated software suite to reach the right bug-infested unit.

To overcome the inadequacies of the waterfall model, enterprises should adopt the agile testing approach. In this, the software development process is shifted left wherein QA is conducted alongside development and not afterward. Let us understand the process better and find out as to what it takes to build a truly agile enterprise with QA.

What is the agile testing approach?

In agile, enterprises aim at becoming robust and flexible to prepare for unexpected events, challenges, or even opportunities. It incorporates policies and procedures that are focused on driving speed and transformation. This way enterprises can achieve continuous delivery of quality software products and services, quickly and consistently.

Any agile testing service has automation at its core. It helps testers by allowing a test automation suite to conduct repetitive tests saving time and cost in the process. Moreover, since the test automation suite can run tests under various test conditions for any number of times, the chances of identifying bugs are significantly high. Besides, running test automation can release manual testers to be deployed for other critical jobs.

How to build a truly agile enterprise

Agile can truly be transformational, provided it follows certain procedures. Let us discuss them in some detail.

Involvement of stakeholders: Since every organization follows a typical ‘work culture,’ which may not be congruent to the agile scheme of things, stakeholders must be taken into confidence. This is important as status quoist working in silos may challenge any change. This can create roadblocks for initiating the change. To overcome such a situation, the management should articulate a clear vision and enable the organization’s culture to be aligned with the vision.

Break the silos: This is a follow-up to the entrenched ‘culture’ where people working in departments or processes (read silos) may not follow a similar process across the organization. The agile process should take explicit steps to get rid of such silos and streamline the overall working environment. This entails better communication that is aligned with the vision of the organization.

Communication at the heart of scrums: In agile methodology, teams are supposed to follow processes that are transparent. To achieve the same, purposeful communication should be established across the scrum-led value chain.

Responding to change: Agile entails quick response to changes instead of following a fixed plan. The changes can come from customers’ feedback, the advent of new technologies, growing competition, or within the organization. So, in a ‘perform or perish’ landscape, agile will allow your enterprise to remain adaptable, sustainable, and result-oriented.

Conclusion

Agile has become a critical requirement for enterprises to remain competitive and cost-effective. It is arguably the way forward to address the changes that are driven by technology and customer preferences. QA has become the ultimate lynchpin upon which enterprises can ride their way to success or oblivion depending on the efficacy of their agile transformation.

The Next-Gen Technology Landscape of the Healthcare Sector

Amanda Nardi

Contributed by Cigniti Technologies.

The healthcare sector is expected to touch $390.7 billion by 2024. Let us discuss the next-gen technologies that are going to impact the healthcare sector.

  • Internet of Things (IoT): Sensor-embedded devices exchanging information over the internet (IoT devices) are finding their way across technology landscapes. These have found usage in the healthcare sector and are making a profound impact on the health of users. By redefining or reshaping diagnostics, disease management, and preemptive care, IoT devices, including the wearables, will become more common in future. To ensure the success of these devices so that they are able to manage life threatening conditions, healthcare software testing should be the norm. Let us understand how IoT devices can be of help in the healthcare sector in the days to come.
    • Tracking locations in real-time: One of the major challenges the healthcare staff needs to grapple with is locating medical devices in real time. For example, portable devices like nebulizers, scales, defibrillators, and ECG devices, among others, are often moved across the healthcare facility. They are often left at places where finding them can become a challenge, especially when there is an emergency. However, should these devices or apparatus be equipped with IoT sensors, they can be easily monitored in real-time. This can help the stakeholders to monitor and manage the healthcare environment.
    • Share health data: Physicians are often challenged by the lack of data concerning the vital parameters of patients. These may include blood pressure, heart rate, and calories burnt, among others. In the absence of such data, carrying out correct diagnosis can become difficult leaving the patients in limbo. However, wearable IoT enabled devices can allow the sharing of vital parameters of patients leading to a quicker and accurate diagnosis. To make sure these devices perform to their optimum and do not suffer from glitches, conducting healthcare application testing becomes a critical requirement.

As IoT based devices capable of providing real-time data become commonplace, efficient diagnostics and care will increase. They will help healthcare professionals in saving lives with the help of data, analytics, and better decision making.

  • 3D Printing: This technology is used to create physical objects from digital data. The examples of 3D-printed prosthetics and human heart model are helping amputees and medical professionals, respectively. The global market for this technology is expected to reach $2,319.5 million by 2020. Let us discuss the latest innovations in 3D printing.
    • Prosthetics: One of the major challenges amputees face in wearing prosthetics is a lack of customization. Prosthetic devices made in the assembly line are made as per general measurements. This is where 3D printing has come as a godsend for physically-challenged patients. Here, patients’ exact specifications concerning the body part(s) are obtained digitally and personalized variants of prosthetics are built. These provide greater maneuverability to the patients, helping them lead their lives with ease.
    • Tissue engineering: The technology helps to recreate damaged tissues and intricate body parts – printed ears, hands, livers, eyes, or hearts. This can be of great help in trauma cases where patients have lost a body part, organ, or tissue. Tissue engineering helps to create functional constructs for damaged tissues or organs. Here, engineered materials combined with stem cells can create the required cell type.
    • Surgical tools: Surgery is becoming more precise with less incisions to be made. This calls for personalized surgical tools to help surgeons in making precise incisions and implanting medical devices. 3D printing with its disruptive application can bring about greater personalization and cost benefits.
  • Artificial Intelligence: This is defined as machines induced with intelligence having the ability to mimic human brain functions. The healthcare sector can benefit immensely by embracing AI. It can drastically improve patient outcomes with medical professionals leveraging AI-enabled medical knowledge. AI-enabled systems can help medical professionals with real-time, relevant, and quality information to derive suitable inferences. These can help in reducing the cost of treatment, elimination of unnecessary procedures, streamlining workflows, and building patient-centric treatment protocols.

AI systems can help in diagnosing chronic health conditions like diabetes, coronary heart disease, and cancer, among others, within minutes. They can do so by analyzing the vital parameters of patients saved in electronic records. Thus, the systems can reduce the need for unnecessary biopsies or even surgeries to diagnose a condition. However, these systems must be subjected to intense healthcare compliance testing to ensure they function as per the expected outcomes.

  • Liquid biopsy: Today, the diagnosis and monitoring of cancer are costly, time-consuming, painful, and invasive. With liquid biopsy, cancer cells can be extracted from a blood sample without having to conduct costly and painful recurring biopsies. The technology will help to monitor tumors in a non-invasive manner even better than a CT scan.

Conclusion

The healthcare industry is going to face disruption thanks to the advent of advanced technologies. To ensure these technologies perform to their optimum and deliver expected outcomes, they should undergo healthcare QA testing. Moreover, since technology is not always flawless and can engender a number of glitches, even driven by human factors, healthcare tech QA can be of help. It can ensure continuous testing of the devices or built-in software as part of the delivery pipeline. Healthcare tech QA can lead to reduced technical errors, better compliance with regulations, and save lives.

 

How digital transformation services can help your enterprise to streak ahead

Amanda Nardi

Contributed by Cigniti Technologies.

The world is moving rapidly by riding on the cutting-edge digital technologies, namely, IoT, SMAC, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, among others. Businesses are developing products or services with interfaces spread across devices, operating systems, browsers, and networks. This has necessitated their legacy systems to be updated by engaging digital transformation services.

The dynamics of market is increasingly being led by changing customer preferences reflected in new needs, habits, and ways of consuming and communicating. Digital transformation allows enterprises to derive outcomes such as increased productivity, expanded consumer base, streamlined workflows, reduced operational costs, enhanced quality products or services, and better ROI, among others.

Since consumers leverage digital technologies to perform a slew of tasks, the amount of data generated is huge. Analyzing this data and deriving business-oriented insights can be a challenge unless, of course, the business has the technology and resources. Digital transformation services can help enterprises in enhancing their customer interface. For example, by transforming their legacy systems, the utility services providers have been able to improve their efficiency significantly. As a result, the consumers do not need to queue up outside the offices of such companies for doing routine transactions. They can simply log onto the portal or app provided by such companies and transact.

With new avenues of interaction such as social media and mobile, customers want their interactions with a company to be consistent across avenues. This requires companies to take an omnichannel approach to cater to their customers. If they do not fall in line, they risk creating customer dissatisfaction and losing them. Again, to cite an example, customers want to place an order as per convenience and want it delivered through their preferred channel. So, unless the company has the technology and resources to address the demand, its competitiveness can go for a toss. Let us discuss how digital business transformation can help businesses to streak ahead in the competition.

Benefits of digital transformation solutions

The proliferation of digital technologies like smartphones and computers, and the ubiquity of the internet, have forced businesses to go digital. While many companies have drawn an elaborate digital transformation strategy to convert their systems, workflows, and deliverables, scores of them remain outside the ambit. Many companies are still wary of undertaking digital transformation implementation due to the cost and challenges involved. However, overcoming them is critical for them to stay competitive.

# Better customer experience: The customers of today have become increasingly choosy, thanks to the plethora of products and services available in the market. Customers are wont to choose products, which are not only qualitatively superior but offer better experiences as well. When it comes to the customer experience, the notable elements include aesthetics, performance, security, usability, responsiveness, and prompt complaint resolution. The last part is often crucial in differentiating between two products of similar features.

# Better analytics: Data have become the most valuable asset for an enterprise. These can help an enterprise to receive deep insights into various aspects of its processes. Also, with big data coming into play, businesses should be prepared to leverage the data for achieving success. A successful digital business transformation helps companies to collate data from customer interactions and transform them into a structured form. Thereafter, they can be analyzed to develop insights, identify outliers, and optimize to deliver better customer experiences.

# Faster time to market: Today, customers generally choose products that hit the market first. The early-bird approach of customers has necessitated companies to embrace digital transformation and streamline their workflows. This involves adopting Agile and DevOps methodologies to ensure continuous integration and delivery. As products go through a faster development, testing, and delivery pipeline, customers can receive the products early.

# Better security features: Security has assumed a critical significance in the success of a product in the market. This is due to the fact that the digital products of today have interfaces with different device platforms and third-party software, thereby creating vulnerabilities. These can be exploited by cybercriminals by introducing malware, trojans, and viruses to steal data and information. Thus, the growing menace of cybercriminals to commit data theft has brought the element of security into sharp focus.

Besides, companies need to adhere to international security protocols to garner credibility and escape censure. Hence, the need to imbibe DevSecOps in the workflows has become all the more important. In this approach, security is to be treated as an integral aspect of the workflow across departments. Hence, by implementing digital transformation solutions, companies can help to identify and address the built-in vulnerabilities of a product.

# Reduce operating costs: The digitization of businesses can streamline the workflows thereby increasing its efficiency. With procedural bottlenecks including redundancies removed or diluted, businesses can minimize their operating costs. This can significantly improve the revenue stream and make the company competitive.

# Brand enhancement: With better quality products or services delivered by the company, its brand awareness in the market increases vis-a-vis its competitors. For example, the brands or products having the biggest market share are the ones that are spoken about by the customers. This is mostly due to their superior quality brought about by innovation and digital transformation.

Conclusion

The future of IT means organizations should be nimble enough to quickly adopt the technologies and methodologies of the day. They must be agile and responsive to the customers’ needs and offer products or services that are superior and secure. The need for organizations to embrace digital transformation has become critical to stay competitive.

Charting the course: Navigating your digital transformation journey

Amanda Nardi

The middle market is now starting to take advantage of digital transformation, with companies of all sizes leveraging new innovations to enhance key business processes and create new ways to add value. Implementing transformational technology is now even more critical for midsized companies, but has also become much more realistic. However, these companies must understand how to choose and prioritize the right technology and gain buy-in from appropriate personnel within the business.

Organizations have the ability to implement innovation strategies that can drive positive change for employees, customers and operations. The journey to digital transformation can be challenging, time-consuming and potentially risky. But the benefits outweigh the risks of not implementing a digital transformation approach.

Read more.

Anexinet Awarded Innovator of the Year!

Amanda Nardi

Philadelphia, PA, October 27, 2016 – Anexinet Corporation, a digital, analytics, and hybrid IT solution company, announced today that they received the “Innovator of the Year” from the Smart CEO-Marcum Innovator of the Year Program, which honors Greater Philadelphia’s most innovative companies.

Recognized for the innovated Unstructured Data Analytics with its ListenLogic Insights Platform, Anexinet created a powerful new approach, which enterprises can use to gain market and operational intelligence derived from all forms of unstructured data.

ListenLogic Insights Platform delivers insight for a variety of descriptive and predictive analytical problems such as improving customer attrition, increasing revenue and sensing reputation risk. The platform performs data ingestion, cleansing and categorization of unstructured data using voice, text analytics and machine learning to “structure” unstructured data. Delivered as an end-to-end managed service, the platform is operated by Anexinet analysts leveraging deep vertical expertise to model and synthesize results.

Click here to read the full press release.