Merck has announced the European launch of its LANEXO™ Lab Inventory, Safety and Compliance Management System, a new digital laboratory informatics solution designed to drastically reduce time in labs and improve data quality and traceability.

“Today, 85 percent of labs are using paper or Excel to manage consumables data, and 25 percent of time is spent managing these data — taking scientists away from bench research,” said Jean-Charles Wirth, head of Applied Solutions, Life Science at Merck.

“Lab efficiency is critical as it gives scientists more time to focus on their research and analytics work and less on administrative tasks, which ultimately leads to faster drug development. Our LANEXO™ System — with first-to-market features — underscores Merck’s commitment to advancing and commercializing laboratory informatics.”

Laboratory informatics is the application of data using a platform of software, data management tools and equipment that allow scientific data to be captured and interpreted for immediate use, and then stored for future research and development purposes. The laboratory informatics market, which accounted for $2.4 billion in 2018, is expected to reach $5.45 billion by 2027, according to a recent Research and Markets global market outlook report.

Merck is the first to offer radio-frequency identification (RFID) labels which auto-register open dates and calculate expiry dates. Through this digital data capture, the LANEXO™ System rapidly documents lab reagent data in real-time. Digitalized inventory, expiration and storage monitoring reduces human error and safety risks and improves the reliability and traceability of compliance documentation.

Ultimately, each reagent, including in-house preparations, can be instantly matched to a full audit report. Within an experimental workflow, the system allows for easy reagent identity checks and provides automatic alerts, helping scientists to avoid using expired reagents and minimizing experimental error.

The cloud-based LANEXO™ System can be easily set up and rapidly integrated into existing lab workflows. It includes mobile (Android) and web applications and is designed for use in highly regulated analytical and research labs in pharmaceutical, quality assurance/quality control and industrial testing markets.

Merck last year launched Milli-Q® Connect, a cloud-based service portal for its water purification systems, and also acquired BSSN Software, a lab informatics company that makes data more readily accessible for ease of integration, collaboration, analysis and long-term archiving.

The company first unveiled its LANEXO™ System during a March 2020 press conference at the Pittcon Conference & Expo 2020 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. For more information, visit www.SigmaAldrich.com/Lanexo.