Life Science Organizations Demand Standards-based Electronic Signatures for Document Management Systems

Vienna, Austria (PRWeb) March 26, 2007 -- On the ten-year anniversary of the FDA issuance of the final rule for 21 CFR Part 11 for Electronic Records, standards-based electronic signatures (digital signatures) provider ARX (Algorithmic Research) substantiates life science organizations’ ever increasing requirement for Enterprise Content Management (ECM) vendors to support standards-based electronic signatures.

Life Science organizations have driven standards-based Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) electronic signatures from a concept, to a trend, and now an industry best practice for 21 CFR Part 11 compliance, eliminating costly proprietary electronic record systems that have burdened their business processes for years.

"The bulk of 21 CFR Part 11 compliant document management and workflow systems deployed over the past decade have been proprietary in nature, and the result is electronic record legacy systems that are painful to maintain," said Rodd Schlerf, Life Science Practice Manager at ARX. "It’s very clear the tide is turning, with life science companies requiring standards-based electronic signatures to create signed documents that become self-contained, portable electronic records, providing a tremendous return on investment for these organizations."

ARX’s electronic signature solution, CoSign®, is leading the wave of electronic signature adoption with an appliance offering that greatly reduces the cost and complexity of traditional deployments. "The growth of CoSign’s use is quite remarkable – our healthcare and life sciences client base has increased over 1000% in the past two years alone," said Schlerf. "CoSign has driven the Total Cost of Ownership of electronic signature deployments down to 10-15% of traditional PKI deployments in years past. And the server-based architecture, combined with our extensive application support, drives rapid deployment and user adoption."

Leading ECM vendors and partners now supporting CoSign include DocuWare®, IBM/FileNet®, OpenText®, Laserfiche®, Xerox®, Oracle®, Microsoft® and others who have already integrated their systems with the ARX CoSign solution on live implementations and as a standard solution offering.

"We determined standard PKI-based electronic signatures were the most secure and widely accepted solution for regulatory compliance," said Zikria Syed, CEO of NextDocs – a Microsoft MOSS 2007 Launch Partner for Life Sciences. "In addition, CoSign provided a high-level API (SAPI) for our web application integration, and virtually zero system administration once deployed."

"CoSign combined with Xerox DocuShare™ and the Sitrof® Compliance Module enables life science organizations to optimize document approval workflows and create electronic records that are self-sustained inside the clients organization," said Dan Wheeler, President, Sitrof Technologies, Inc.

"We have seen a growing customer demand for electronic signature solutions initiated both by legislation requirements as well as the need to save on time and costs related to printing, signing and mailing documents," said Tony Heywood, Senior VP EMEA, OpenText ECM. "The addition of CoSign to the Hummingbird partner portfolio of solutions ideally positions us to meet this demand."

"CoSign’s capabilities for protecting the integrity of electronic signatures and documents complements Laserfiche’s extensive built-in security features, making ARX a valuable addition to the Laserfiche PDP program," said Hedy Aref, Vice President of Vertical Marketing at Laserfiche.

Ron Janssen, Marketing Director of Square DMS (IBM/FileNet VAR) stated CoSign is, "a solution that will enable our customers a smooth migration to electronic signatures and a total paperless environment. CoSign offers our customers a unique integration with their own existing corporate environment that is very simple to use and deploy."

The benefits of CoSign go well beyond 21 CFR Part 11 compliance, enabling life science organizations to eliminate the tremendous costs and time of securing approvals; industry averages place this human and hard cost at a minimum of $10-20 per document. Furthermore, electronically signed documents do not require any proprietary technology or licenses for recipients to validate authenticity or data integrity, hence workflows and electronic submissions and workflows are extended beyond the traditional corporate, geographic, and technologic barriers of any single entity to include the extended network of partners collaborating on research, clinical development, regulatory approval and commercial activities.

About CoSign®
CoSign by ARX is a standards-based electronic signature (digital signature) solution. Signing and sealing electronic documents with CoSign will immediately expedite business processes, reduce costs, increase security and help organizations comply with regulations. CoSign electronic signatures are based on standard PKI technology, guaranteeing signer authenticity, data integrity and the non-repudiation of electronic documents.

CoSign supports all major applications and file formats (Word, Excel®, Outlook®, PDF, TIFF, AutoCAD, InfoPath and many more). With a rapid deployment, unique centralized approach, built-in integration with an organization's existing user-management directory systems, and extensive 3rd party application support, CoSign guarantees a quick ROI. For more information please visit www.arx.com/products/cosign.php

About ARX (Algorithmic Research)
ARX has 20 years of experience assisting life sciences, healthcare, financial institutions, governmental organizations and commercial sectors to secure and streamline their processes and transactions. The company is a global provider of standards-based electronic-signature and information-assurance solutions. ARX offers a wide range of high-end and state-of-the-art products and services designed to simplify, secure, and accelerate electronic transactions. ARX products are easy to use and simple to deploy, combining software and hardware solutions for small, medium and large business environments. ARX Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Algorithmic Research Ltd., which went through an MBO process from Cylink Corp, today SafeNet, Inc. (NASDAQ:SFNT).

For more information, please visit www.arx.com

CoSign® is a registered trademark of Algorithmic Research, Ltd. All other trade names and trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

Contact
Raanan Dahari, Sales Director
EMEA
+97239279500
raanan @ arx.com

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