Enterprise Search at AstraZeneca

Pharmaceuticals

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General AstraZeneca Background

• Waltham focus on Cancer and Infection • About 12,000 R&D Staff Globally• Increasing External Partnerships and Alliances

Montreal

Boston

Wilmington

AlderleyMacclesfield

CharnwoodAvlon

MölndalSödertälje

Lund

Reims Bangalore

Internal Drug ProjectsPatients & Markets

Organization & Admin

More at AstraZeneca.com

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Search in Context

Collaborative Areas:Place to collaborate quickly and

easily without worrying about work in progress being misunderstood

~ 8,000 today

Information Libraries:More official sources of “finished”

information that’s likely to have value over time and to a relatively wide audience

Portal Interface:Single point of entry to information and

tools – via browsing or searching

Our “3-Fold Path”

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Search Interfaces

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Amateur’s View of Search• Engine

• We Currently use Autonomy• Constant Comparison to Speed & Quality of Google

• Interface• Simple starting point – click and go• Advanced option (rarely used)• Presentation of Results

• Underlying Quality of Information• Increasing Reach of Enterprise Taxonomy• Very questionable application by individual editors /

contributors

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Open Questions• How can we reduce the IM burden on scientists,

clinicians?• Taxonomy vs Folksonomy vs Irrelevant• Will manual tagging of documents be overtaken by

technology?• How to integrate it all

• Volume• Range of repositories – secure, limited, and open• Range of information types – structured, free, video, etc.

• General People Issues• Are people ready to find vs navigate?• Dealing with range of skill levels & time constraints