Software leads as fastest growing IT spending category for life science companies, according to Life Science Insights.

According to Life Science Insights (LSI), an IDC Company, worldwide IT spending for the life science sector will reach $38.9 billion in 2008, driven by the need to tackle industry pain points, such as regulatory burdens and costly clinical trials, and by life sciences companies leveraging IT to enable personalized medicine.

Life science companies are pouring significant resources into applications that help them act intelligently on the massive quantities of data generated within their organizations. Additionally, they are optimizing the operation of their hardware investments through infrastructure software investments. Significant improvements in certain industry-specific software categories, such as CTMS, are also encouraging some companies to migrate from internally developed systems to off-the-shelf solutions.

LSI's recently published 1H05 Green Book Update: IT Spending Model 2004-2008 (doc # LSI1007) provides market sizing and forecast information on IT spending within the life science industry across 21 technology segments, six regions, and six buyer segments including academia, biotechnology companies, diagnostic and health screening companies, government agencies, pharmaceutical companies, and contract research organizations (CROs).