ADC Therapeutics is focused on the development of proprietary Antibody Drug Conjugates (ADCs) for the treatment of both solid and hematological cancers.

We interview Charlie Britten, scientist at ADC Therapeutics, and ask him about his group’s experience of using Labguru as a cloud-based lab management solution.

ADC Therapeutics is focused on the development of proprietary Antibody Drug Conjugates (ADCs) for the treatment of both solid and hematological cancers. The company has been in existence since 2012 and employs monoclonal antibodies specific to particular tumor antigens conjugated to a novel class of highly potent pyrrolobenzodiazepine (PBD) -based warheads to selectively kill cancer cells.Selective targeting means fewer side effects for patients and ADC Therapeutics believes the unique PBD mode of action will result in a superior efficacy and resistance profile.The company is headquartered in Lausanne and has a lab in London and its manufacturing activities and clinical operations are managed from its US offices in San Francisco and New Jersey respectively. The company employs 16 people in Research & Development, five of those are employed in the lab group. The lab was set up 18 months ago and Labguru was implemented from the outset. Reagents and other consumables are managed in Labguru but the main application is the electronic lab notebook (ELN). Charlie Britten is a scientist for ADCT and works in assay development. As part of his role, he also liaises with the external CROs (Contract Research Organizations) who perform methods and analysis for regulatory studies around the assays. He is based in ADC’s London-based lab group.

Summarising the challengeADCT selected Labguru as an electronic lab notebook solution (ELN). Charlie says: “When the lab opened, we were using paper lab notebooks to begin with. We quickly found that based on the sheer amount of data we were producing, it was not feasible to continue using the print notebooks. We needed to find an Electronic Lab Notebook solution. We looked at several options but for most of them there were severe limitations. They were either locally hosted, or the timescale to set them up was too long, or they had limited functionality. Labguru was the only solution to tick all the key boxes for us.”

cont.Charles Britten

About• http://www.adctherapeutics.com/

People• Charlie Britten Scientist,

ADC Therapeutics

• Increase efficiency, productivityand collaboration by migratingfrom a paper workflow to anelectronic lab notebook

Approach

• Invest in a cloud-based labmanagement solution fromLabguru

Results

• Estimated gain of one additionalday of productivity per week forteam of 5 scientists by increasingthroughput of sample analysis andcompleted experiments

ELN helps ADCT get more productive and meet milestones more quickly

labguru.com

Overall Goal

• Linked and integrated data makesit easy for any member of the labteam to find the right protocol,asset or entity to help them bemore successful, and troubleshootproblems more quickly

• With more complete andintegrated knowledgemanagement, the lab team canmake decisions faster and meetkey milestones more quickly

Access across many sitesCritically, Labguru also provided a cloud-based lab management system to serve different people working in different locations. This was an essential selling point for Charlie and his colleagues. They needed to be able to view the lab work from different locations. Charlie finds that the data in Labguru is very structured and ordered to enable a better overview. For reporting, Charlie likes the fact that a user can create a PDF and send it immediately to a colleague who does not have Labguru.

“The number of samples that can be analysed is vastly increased as the lab team can write the experiments and results in less than one hour so I estimate that we can save a day per week by using the ELN rather than having to search, scan, print and compile everything together in a printed lab notebook.”

A second key utility was the integrated and linked information in Labguru. Charlie comments “In Labguru you can link everything together and integrate all information and assets in one system. One team member can order reagents and link them into experiments, recipes and protocols. This would be very difficult to achieve in a locally loaded system as these types of systems are made up of separate parts - one for managing stocks, one for recording data and all of these different parts working independently of each other. With Labguru, Charlie continues “You can see where an entity, for example, an antibody was used across a list of experiments. This makes it easier to troubleshoot issues and establish the suitability of entities for different experimental tasks.”

For more information on Digital Science Research Tools e-mail researchtools@digital-science.com

labguru.com

For more information on how Labguru can help you:

e: sales@biodata.comp: 1.800.314.6652

Linked information deliver key insights

ADCT does a lot of flow cytometry work in the lab, and in this context, its team needs to be able to retain and integrate the raw data in the documented experiment. Charlie identifies a serious pain point when trying to do work in flow cytometry with paper-based lab notebooks. “The bottleneck here with printed lab notebooks is that you can’t print 200 or 300 pages of the raw data that you need to output from this type of work. With an ELN, you can flow this raw data directly alongside the experimental summary and the graphs visualizing the results.” Charlie continues: “We also need the raw data to be easily accessible, in the right context, to anyone across the lab, so that conclusions that can be independently checked and verified. We need this because we need to do random checks on the data. This is all easily done in Labguru.”

Raw research data can flow through seamlessly

Charlie also states that a lab can save significant amount of time with Labguru, as a higher throughput of sample analysis and experiments can be executed due to the utility that the ELN brings. “The number of samples that can analyzed is vastly increased as the lab team can write the experiments and results in less than one hour so I estimate that we can save up to a day per week by using the ELN rather than having to search, scan, print and compile everything together in a printed lab notebook.” Charlie also highlights a strategic advantage from this operational increase in productivity. “When you get a higher throughput of sample analysis and completed experiments, the team can make decisions faster, meet milestones to help move more quickly towards our scientific and commercial goals.”

ROI from Labguru

cont.