Good laboratory practice requires that electronic records are kept, and that information can easily be accessed.

The pharmaceutical industry is highly regulated. An important aspect of this regulation is the storage of samples and records, ensuring that all information is readily available. In pharmaceutical laboratories data comes from computer imaging, robotic screening and analysis, and of course from the many experiments carried out by scientists and the reports they produce.

Archiving is also vitally important within clinical trials, which must be highly documented, and all information stored long-term. These methods of maintaining documents and chemical and biological samples is therefore an essential part of the research and development of new medicines. 

Find out more about the different forms of archiving: