The LIMS revolution - where is it headed: an Australian perspective

Laboratory information management systems, or LIMS as it is popularly known, has been gaining good acceptance world over. Australia is not far behind in adopting this new technology. LIMS has been there in the market for over 10 years now and many organisations are now implementing their second or third generation of LIMS.

Initially, LIMS technology was deployed in the traditional markets - petrochemical, mining, manufacturing and environmental laboratories - but in recent years there has been a shift to new application areas. These new market opportunities in industries such as food processing and biotechnology are driven by compliance with regulatory bodies and the need to handle significantly larger volumes of data.

Multi-faceted industrial applications and vital interface compatibility with medical instrumentation is currently driving the preference for LIMS in biotech. Coupled with that is the customisability of the software to biotech and pharmaceutical research.

The market for pharmaceutical and biotechnology applications of LIMS is currently valued at US$1.22 million in Australia and is forecast to reach US$1.73 million by 2007.

The pharmaceutical applications contribute to 23% of the total LIMS value while the biotech sector accounts for 4% of the LIMS market.