Verizon Extends Healthcare Focus to Pharmaceutical Sector

Verizon is extending its healthcare focus to now include the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries, the company announced today (June 18, 2014) at the Drug Information Association show (Booth #438) in San Diego, Calif. Verizon, who has been helping to transform the delivery of healthcare in the U.S. through a growing portfolio of IT solutions, unveiled two new industry-specific solutions designed to help companies keep up with increasing regulatory requirements for this sector.

Available immediately in the U.S. and Europe, Verizon is launching a portfolio of GxP (Good x Practices) Services for managing sensitive clinical and drug manufacturing data in the Verizon cloud or from select data centers. The company also entered into a partnership agreement with rfXcel whereby Verizon will provide its complementary cloud and data center service options to clients. rfXcel provides a serialization solution that helps companies track and trace pharmaceuticals from manufacturing to distribution.

“Companies within the sector are struggling today to meet growing regulatory requirements,” said Rich Black, vice president of Verizon’s healthcare practice. “We have found that our IT infrastructure which leverages our cloud, security and technical expertise can enable them to address this burden. We recently met with several large pharmaceutical companies and they were energized to learn that Verizon’s infrastructure services can be used to address what is clearly a pain point for them.”

Five Ways GxP Benefits the Pharmaceutical Industry
Verizon’s GxP services include colocation, managed hosting, and enterprise cloud solutions in three of the company’s premier global data centers, as well as professional services to size/scope the architecture and enable deployment. Verizon’s GxP services are helping companies to take advantage of:

• Geographic Coverage: Locations in North America (Culpeper, Va. and Miami, Fla.), and Europe (Amsterdam)
• Foundational Security: GxP services come with a baseline ISO 27001 certification
• Quality Management: Are managed under Verizon’s Quality Management Program to deliver qualified infrastructure with appropriate sign-offs on standard operating procedures and to ensure proper training, policies and document/record control
• Agility Enablement: Framework provides options to manage rapid growth, support alternative cost models (OPEX versus. CAPEX) and help accelerate new market expansions
• Focus on Core Competencies: Enables the outsourcing of existing non-strategic systems to free up internal resources for strategic initiatives

rfXcel Solution Provides Efficient Way to Track and Trace Drugs
rfXcel, a leader in cloud-based software applications, provides an efficient and cost-effective solution for tracking and tracing drugs throughout the supply chain, while reducing risk to patients through exposure to counterfeit drugs. Available to clients through rfXcel, this solution is a complete end-to-end service with compliance reporting that uses RFID and a 2D barcode that can be easily integrated into current ERP systems. The rfXcel solution offers serialization; traceability; alerts and notification; error detection and correction; and inventory management capabilities as well as an easy-to-use Web portal.

Verizon Delivers Comprehensive Set of Health IT Solutions
Verizon provides an array of health IT solutions that can be leveraged to address some of the biggest challenges facing healthcare systems today, including the ability to securely and efficiently exchange sensitive data across hospital, payer and physician networks via voice, video and data. This includes interconnected cloud, mobility, machine-to-machine and security solution sets including Universal Identity Services with Safe BioPharma.

Verizon’s vision is to create a world in which connected individuals and healthcare organizations are empowered with innovative technologies that improve health outcomes, transform access to care and lower the cost of healthcare.