OSI Pharmaceuticals Selects SAS® Enterprise BI Server

OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc., a leading biotechnology company that discovers and develops high-quality oncology products for cancer patients worldwide, has selected SAS Enterprise BI Serverto prepare detailed clinical reports and other patient data presentations for doctors and scientists.

OSI plans to implement the SAS Enterprise BI Server to help doctors access the underlying data and diagnosis for individual patients to expedite medical reviews.

Better, faster decision making
SAS Enterprise BI Server, a component of the SAS Intelligence Platform, empowers users at all skill levels, supplying them with targeted interfaces that support individual needs. With its suite of enterprisewide ad hoc query and reporting capabilities, SAS Enterprise BI Server applies the power of SAS analyticsand data management– making it a unique offering in the BI marketplace.

"SAS’ BI enhancements will greatly contribute to our internal patient review process and could speed up the decision-making process, which is critical in the biopharmaceutical industry where time is money," says George Hage, associate director of statistical programming at OSI Pharmaceuticals.

"Providing our doctors and scientists with easy access to the latest business intelligence tools from SAS that link directly to advanced analytics should allow them to make more highly informed decisions and take quicker actions," continues Hage. "SAS is the industry standard, so it was practical for OSI Pharmaceuticals to build and standardize on SAS analytics and reporting."

Knowing where you’ve been ... and where you’re headed
SAS also will provide advanced analytic capabilities for OSI, including forecasting, modeling and optimization. Thus equipped, OSI will be able to explore and analyze data through an intuitive user interface. This analysis-driven BI includes predictive analytics, which not only allows for detailed historic information, but is designed to provide accurate foresight. It also allows users to predict and determine best outcomes by lowering risks and helping doctors identify new opportunities and better understand the associated risks and benefits for each patient.

The emergence of the CDISC SDTM data model for submitting data to the FDA also influenced OSI’s business decision to implement the latest SAS technologies. SAS®9provides enhanced capabilities for dealing with XML files in general, and the CDISC models in particular. "We already use SAS at many stages in the drug development process, and being able to use SAS to address the CDISC standards is a logical next step," says Hage.

Saving time, saving lives
OSI has established a high-quality oncology clinical development and regulatory affairs capability, Hage explains. The company will implement Web-based tools to speed up its internal medical review process for oncology services that doctors customize for each patient.

According to Hage, OSI intends to use the SAS Enterprise BI Server architecture, in particular SAS Web Report Studioand SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office, to enhance the medical review process and to track data.

With SAS Web Report Studio, non-technical decision makers enjoy greater Web-based query and reporting functions that enable them to access high-quality data and SAS’ predictive analytic capabilities without technical training. With SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office, users gain an Excel environment to explore data more thoroughly with SAS analytics. They also enjoy rich capabilities in reporting and data access, directly from the Microsoft Office environment.

"I am excited about implementing SAS Business Intelligence, with the intent of reducing data review time for our doctors," says OSI’s Hage. "This, in turn, should save the programmers from responding to routine ad hoc requests and it should save the doctors time because they’ll have quick access to our data."

"We’re happy that OSI Pharmaceuticals plans to expand its BI architecture with SAS. This will give the doctors crystal-clear reports that save valuable time," says Rob Stephens, director of technology strategy at SAS. "The BI architecture and the ability to allow doctors current access to the data will help them, and ultimately, could help them extend the lives of oncology patients around the world."