European life sciences consulting leaders MAIN5 and fme AG offer first end-to-end, vendor-neutral business and tech change management service

Brunswick - May 17, 2022 : The strategic alliance will address growing market demand as data-driven ambitions and M&A activity peak in the industry

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The European Life Sciences Team of fme AG, the digital transformation IT services specialist, and European life sciences consulting leader MAIN5 have formed a strategic partnership in Europe to meet a growing gap they have identified in their market – for a vendor-independent digital transformation proposition geared specifically to the needs of life sciences companies.

The combined proposition will be the first end-to-end, vendor-neutral business and tech change management service for this market. fme Life Sciences Europe specialises in platform implementation, data integration and migration consulting services, while MAIN5 Management Consulting provides advisory services in the life sciences industry around organisational change, business process management (BPM) and project management.

The alliance will address soaring market demand as companies’ aspirations to become more data driven grow, and as merger and acquisition activity peaks in the life sciences industry, triggering ambitious system migrations. Together, MAIN5 and fme will help the pharma industry tackle transformation projects more holistically from both a business and technology standpoint, irrespective of the technology platforms adopted by the client.

The partnership, which was inspired by personal working relationships that go back for many years and is already delivering combined services to a major blue-chip pharma client, has been formed on an equal footing.

Ian Crone, Business Unit Director Life Sciences Europe at fme AG, said: »This move comes very much in response to the evolving needs of the market. We considered hiring our own people to build the same change management/project expertise, but bringing them all on board and up to speed with the particular needs of life sciences clients– for example around regulatory information management and impending IDMP requirements – would have taken too long. MAIN5 already had all of that specialist industry knowledge, expertise and experience, so a strategic partnership made perfect sense.«

Romuald Braun, Managing Partner at MAIN5, added: »Through this partnership, our two companies have broadened the scope of our offerings. MAIN5 provides expertise in the business aspects of change in life sciences, in the form of end-to-end business services/consulting and vendor-neutral systems validation. Meanwhile fme specialises in the technology – the migration and integration of data as part of consolidation or transformation initiatives. Combined, this makes for a very powerful proposition for life sciences, supporting our clients’ projects end to end with a comprehensive business and IT capability.«

One benefit of this is that life sciences companies will be better able to scope their data challenges and establish proofs of concept at an earlier stage in their process transformation initiatives.

fme AG’s Ian Crone noted: »So many companies are at risk if they haven’t assessed the quality and any problems with their data ahead of time. Now, we’ll be involved at a much earlier stage and be able to advise companies on an optimal approach. After all, there’s no value in investing in and going live with a new system if the data being moved across does not meet the quality requirements.«

Data-based transformation projects are reaching an all-time high in life sciences, as new regulatory requirements such as DADI and IDMP loom large. Merger and acquisition activity in the industry has intensified, too.

MAIN5’s Romuald Braun explained: »This triggers all kinds of process and system consolidation activity. Also, as companies look to manage more of their activities in the cloud, where they can take advantage of more agile and up-to-date system functionality, the diversity of technologies and the need to keep everything validated and in sync means there’s a lot to keep on top of.«

»Through this partnership with fme, you’ll see us offer continuous validation and compliance in a standardised way, drawing on our business knowledge and fme AG’s technical capabilities – just one of the exciting outcomes of this already proven alliance.«

About MAIN5

MAIN5 GmbH & Co. KGaA is an independent and successful management consulting company headquartered in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. We solve key challenges of our customers sustainably and reliably, each of which is of high relevance in the growing international competition.
Our focus is on the leading companies in the life sciences sector. This is the industry in which we are at home and in which we have sustainable success through the definition, implementation and introduction of forward looking methods, strategies and solutions.

Website MAIN5

About fme

Digitalization enables new ways of dealing with existing businesses and creates totally new business models. We believe in the opportunities of digital transformation and love to help our clients worldwide maintain and create competitive businesses with business consulting and technology services. Our devoted consultants optimize or challenge our clients’ business models through existing and new technologies and advise them on the necessary cultural change in their company. Cloud, Business Intelligence, Collaboration and Enterprise Content Management technologies in combination with custom software development and the ability to operate our clients’ systems 24×7 help us to add value to our clients’ transformation process.

The industry focus lies on solutions for life sciences, industrial manufacturing and financial services. To this effect, we provide vendor independent consulting services. Our teams in Germany, the United States and Romania are experienced in managing global projects and also grant access to our cost-effective near-shore resources where advisable.

For 25 years, renowned corporations like Boehringer Ingelheim, BMW, CSL Behring, Debeka, EagleBurgmann, Merck, Sanofi-Aventis, Volkswagen and Volkswagen Financial Services have relied on our experience and competence. We are a privately held company and have enjoyed uninterrupted and profitable growth over the years resulting in a comfortable shareholder equity rate.