MSP Comparison:
The Best MSP For Biotech and Pharmaceutical Firms
MSPs (managed service providers) can abstract away the complexity of day-to-day IT operations for small and medium-sized enterprises. Being able to focus less on IT infrastructure and more on core business is a big benefit for any organization, but particularly so in the competitive biotech and pharmaceutical industries.
Of course, the biotech and pharmaceutical spaces come with unique challenges. Information management, data governance, security, and compliance are even more important in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. An MSP used to working in other sectors can struggle to keep up. Selecting the wrong MSP can lead to IT issues that hamstring productivity, cost money, or, worse, lead to compliance issues or data breaches.
To help you narrow down the search for your next MSP, we’ve evaluated MSPs from across the USA to determine who is best fit to serve clients in the biotech and pharmaceutical spaces. Here, we’ll explain a bit more about why MSPs are important, explore the criteria we compared MSPs on, compare our top 3, and name the nation’s top MSP for biotech and pharmaceutical businesses.
What is an MSP exactly?
A managed service provider is a firm that manages IT infrastructure for other organizations.
Of course, IT infrastructure is a broad term. Network gear, servers, cloud services, personal computers, antivirus software, and much more all falls under that same umbrella. Similarly, there is plenty of variance in the depth and breadth of services different MSPs offer.
For example, some MSPs may specialize in AWS cloud services while others focus on Juniper network products. Others may offer support for the entirety of your IT infrastructure from on-premises cabling to the cloud. Service level agreements (SLAs), how support is offered (in person, chat, email, etc), and how break/fix issues are handled can be different from provider to provider as well.
What size biotech and pharmaceutical firms benefit most from MSPs?
Effectively any size firm can benefit, but there is a substantial upside for small to medium-sized firms with 100-500 employees.
Any business can benefit from an MSP under the right circumstances, which is part of the reason they are so common. However, in many cases, small to medium-sized biotech and pharmaceutical enterprises are uniquely positioned to benefit from using an MSP.
This is because businesses — particularly growing businesses — at this stage are large enough to have significant IT infrastructure, data security, and compliance needs, but don’t usually have the in-house expertise to address it all.
While bringing on more staff is an option, in most cases they are better served by letting their own full-time employees focus on core business. After all, 40 hours of research & development or field-sales can add more to the bottom line than a week’s worth of IT support. By contracting an MSP to abstract away the complexity of IT management, these businesses can focus on their primary value chain.
Our criteria for MSP evaluation for the biotech and pharmaceutical industries
Here are the key criteria used to evaluate the MSPs that made our list.
Data breaches can damage your reputation, cost you money, or even cripple your business. No pharma or biotech firm can afford to have insecure IT infrastructure, so MSPs with solid security expertise, certifications, and track records got points here.
Top 3 MSPs for biotech and pharmaceutical firms
Imagis, W. O'Donnell Consulting, and Synoptek topped our list of the nation’s best MSPs for biotech and pharmaceutical firms.
1. Company overview
2. Biotech and pharma expertise
Rating:
Industry Expertise:
Imagis has an impressive track record in the healthcare space and experience navigating compliance challenges relevant to biotech and pharma. For example, they’re one of the rare MSPs with expertise with United States Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) 21 CFR Part 11.
Rating:
Industry Expertise:
W. O'Donnell has been in business since 1996 and healthcare is one of its target industries. They have experience with many of the security and compliance issues relevant to pharma and biotech.
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Industry Expertise:
Synoptek has a solid track record serving healthcare businesses and addressing the related compliance and security challenges. As a result, much of the expertise translates well for firms in the biotech and pharma space.
3. Technologies supported
Rating:
Key technologies Imagis supports include:
- Microsoft Azure
- Office365
- Microsoft Teams
- Windows Servers
- Remote Desktop
- VDI
- Citrix technologies
- Dell hardware
- Lenovo hardware
- Cisco hardware
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Key technologies W. O'Donnell supports include:
- Office365
- Citrix technologies
- Cisco hardware
- Xerox hardware
- HP hardware
- Lenovo hardware
- Kerio Connect
Rating:
Key technologies Synoptek supports include:
- Google Workspace (formerly G Suite)
- AWS
- Microsoft Azure
- Office365
- Microsoft Teams
- SAP
- SalesForce
- Magento
- PowerBI
4. Compliance
Rating:
- HIPAA
- FDA 21 CFR Part 11
- ISO 27001ams
Rating:
- HIPAA
Rating:
- HIPAA
5. Information security
Rating:
- Security operations center (a.k.a. SOC) available 24x7x365
- Strategic consultations for compliance and security
- HIPAA and NIST-CSF risk assessments
- Network security auditing
- Monitoring of dark web activity
- Security +, CEH, and CISSP certified staff
- Training for security awareness
Rating:
- SOC available 24x7x365
- (ISC)² Training Classes
- Network security consulting and auditing
Rating:
- SOC available 24x7x365
- NIST, CIS, ISO27K risk assessments
- Cybersecurity assessment services
- Data protection assessment services
6. Disaster recovery
Rating:
- Backup and DR services with data able to be recovered in minutes
- Cloud backups
- Backup and DR virtualization to protect against hardware failure
Rating:
- Backup services
- eFolder cloud backups
Rating:
- Backup and DR services
- Managed data protection
- SSAE 16 compliant
7. Service level & service area
Rating:
- 24x7x365 helpdesk availability
- 24x7x365 network operations center
- 10 minute average response time
- Onsite support nationwide
- Online support via email, chat, or portal
- Phone support
- Dedicated vCIO
- Technology procurement, budgeting, and asset management services
Rating:
- 24x7x365 helpdesk availability
- 24x7x365 network operations center
- Onsite support coverage in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Tennessee
- Online support via email, chat, or portal
- Technology procurement, budgeting, and asset management services
Rating:
- 24x7x365 helpdesk availability
- Onsite support in the USA, Canada, and India
- Online support via portal or email
- Phone support
- Dedicated vCIO
- Technology procurement and budgeting services
The best overall MSP for biotech and pharmaceutical firms is: Imagis
In short: if you’re in the financial services sector and in the market for an MSP in the New York area, put Imagis at the top of your list.
While all 3 of the finalists scored well, Imagis differentiated themselves based on breadth and quality of services.
Imagis delivers all the standard services you would expect from a top-tier MSP: wide-range of technologies supported, fast response times, and sound security and disaster recovery practices. However, what sets them apart is the depth of their customer service and ability to deliver expert-level support for complex compliance and security challenges. For example, Imagis has a proven track record in quickly enabling small to medium-sized enterprises to implement information management, documentation authoring, and data governance best practices to achieve compliance and better overall information security.
In the world of biotech and pharmaceutical firms, that expertise and ability to act as a guide when making nuanced data security and information management decisions can be a game-changer. Imagis doesn’t just install and manage the IT infrastructure, they can help with CIO-level decision making as well.
In short, Imagis delivers the core benefit an MSP should: the ability to focus on your core business and not worry about IT. This quote from Dr. Rick Patt Co-Founder and Principal of Rad MD, sums it up best:
