Report: Turbulent year ahead for life sciences

This will be a year of continued turbulence for life science companies, according to a report from Healthy Industry Insights, a unit of IDC, a Framingham-based global market intelligence company.

While mergers and acquisitions, continued cost cutting (including layoffs and offshoring), and a limited number of new drug approvals will highlight 2008 news, several more profound organic changes will occur that should strongly impact the industry over the long term, Health Industry Insights said.

Many of these changes have information-technology components and will require both high-level organizational buy-in as well as behavioral change to succeed, Health Industry Insights said, and the use of business intelligence/analytics tools to more efficiently manage the life science industry will increase rapidly in 2008.
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)