Oracle leads top 10 life science software providers

The current economic crisis has only exacerbated an already worrisome situation in the life sciences. The industry has already been undergoing reformation to cut costs and improve long-term sustainability for nearly a decade. To help understand the impact on IT, Health Industry Insights, an IDC company, recently conducted a study to identify the most successful software vendors serving the life science market.

The top 10 companies, based on enterprise life science software revenue, have been identified and are discussed in a new research document.

"From an IT perspective, companies are undergoing significant application portfolio rationalisation and consolidation to reduce redundancy across divisions, drive improved operational efficiencies, consolidate decision making to capture additional economies of scale and improve cross-department integration, and reduce development, maintenance, and support costs for major systems," said Eric Newmark, Health Industry Insights research manager.

Newmark also added, "Simultaneously, software vendors serving this market continue to merge and acquire, which often leaves end users with unanswered questions around long term product roadmaps, support, and company viability."

Health Industry Insights research reveals that the top 10 life science software vendor list includes both enterprise and specialty vendors. Oracle easily topped the chart, with nearly $60 million more life science revenues than second place SAP. While internal estimates show that Oracle and SAP were virtually tied five years ago, Oracle's aggressive acquisition strategy has clearly paid big dividends that have helped to drive its success in the life science industry.

SAP maintains a stronghold on second place, but its preference for internal development rather than acquisition, coupled with turnover among its life science leadership, has led to slower revenue growth. Rounding out third place was SAS, with $123 million in life science revenues.

Analytics and business intelligence have become key priorities for life science companies, as they work to eliminate data silos and make data more actionable. This trend has been a healthy wind catapulting the SAS sail for several years now.