Control reputational risk for “Big Pharma”

We were contacted when a major pharma with a drug for flu pandemics had a problem.

They have a duty to collect data on adverse events such as headaches or nausea. A pandemic means adverse events will come in at very large scale and the events reporting system must cope.

They had a fixed deadline and knew their current system would not scale if the anticipated pandemic arrived.

In brief

Synopsis: Akriga deliver a solution that works at pandemic scale

Client: Top 10 global pharmaceutical company

Skills: Interpersonal skills, Java programming, IBM Websphere, Unix, web development

Technology for Operations

More info

The challenge

Client is a global pharmaceutical company.

The challenge

As web developers this is the background to the development task:

A predicted Pandemic looming.
Pharmacovigilence (adverse events) reporting is required.
Budget not an issue but deadline immovable; multi-million dollar brand equity at stake.
Based on concerns about very high traffic a last minute change from Windows to Unix hosting is called for.
Complex hosting infrastructure, not a typical LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP) setup. Infrastructure maintenance has been outsourced and is not well understood by the client.
Outsourced hosting company unwilling & unable to help and are several time-zones away.
No in-house capability available to take this challenge on.

The solution

Build a copy of the hosting environment: Unix, IBM WebSphere Application Server deploying Java code. (N.B. IBM calls its webserver IHS Internet Http Server and it is based on Apache 2.0 with some additional patches & the ability to work with the WebSphere administrative console).
Understand political/management environment as well as technical one.
Negotiate, build alliances, find showstoppers.
Write & deploy Java servlet code via corporate release procedures, across different timezones. Release process involves a VPN, FTP, & bash scripts started via SSH.
Pass corporate security test; 10 000 known exploits unleashed on our code.
Pass the test, hit the deadline.

The outcomes

All case studies

CONTACT

hello@akriga.com
+44 (0)1235 521909
Akriga Ltd, 142 South Avenue Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX14 1QY