Pfizer speeds up clinical trials by unlocking real-time data 

“Fivetran provides a framework for standardizing data replication across all of Pfizer, enabling us to achieve real-time analytics.”
— John Leone, Senior Manager of Global Platform Support Services for Pfizer’s Artificial Intelligence, Data and Analytics organization

Pfizer is the world's largest research-based pharmaceutical company, with more than 88,000 employees in 180 countries. In 2023, the company delivered medicines and vaccines to more than 618 million people. Every year, the company invests billions of dollars in research and development of life-saving drugs, including the first widely-approved COVID-19 vaccine.

John Leone, Senior Manager at Pfizer’s Artificial Intelligence, Data and Analytics organization, leads the team responsible for global data and platform services. His team relies on tools like Fivetran to support scalable analytics platforms and enable real-time analytics, which is particularly crucial in areas such as clinical trials and supply chain operations.

Tackling complex clinical trial supply chains

The clinical trial supply chain is inherently complex, requiring precise coordination of resources, participants, medical staff and medications. Real-time visibility into this supply chain is essential for efficiently running trials. Fivetran helps achieve this by aggregating data from multiple sources, allowing Pfizer to build comprehensive analytics dashboards and gain actionable insights. 

Modernizing legacy data systems for future growth

One of Pfizer’s key data sources is a two-decade-old data warehouse, a business-critical system that is both complex and challenging for real-time data access. Sreeram Koneru, Director of Analytics Platform Delivery at Pfizer, aimed to modernize this infrastructure without disrupting operations or increasing system load.

Fivetran offered the ideal solution, enabling comprehensive database replication without impacting performance.

“We used Fivetran to replicate data in real time from the legacy warehouse and populate our modern lakehouse in Snowflake,” Koneru shares. This allowed his team to build new data products and plan a migration strategy for a future platform. “Without Fivetran, we would have needed six months to figure out our migration strategy to a new, modern data platform.”

Driving global impact with efficient data management

Internal demand for real-time analytics is what drives the work for Leone’s team. Key business-impacting use cases, either in production or near launch, include:

• Manufacturing and quality metrics: Monitoring data from drug manufacturing systems to ensure product quality and promptly identify potential issues.
• Revenue management: Maintaining up-to-date financial records and performing real-time financial analytics for better decision-making.
• Portfolio and project management: Managing resources and timelines with data from portfolio and project systems.

Leone’s team continues to meet key data goals, such as accessibility, democratization, productization and sharing data across the enterprise. “Now, we can bring in data much more easily, successfully centralizing data into our lakehouse,” Leone adds. 

Thanks to Fivetran, Pfizer has not only streamlined data replication but has also enhanced operational efficiency across its global business. This mission-critical data drives better decisions and improves patient outcomes around the world. 

Download this IDC report to learn how Fivetran drives millions in financial impact and enables new business initiatives for enterprises.