Exostar
Secure Collaboration in the Cloud Identity and Access Management

Large pharmaceutical companies continue to move their research and development outside their four walls to cut cost accelerate development and leverage research partner specialization. In this environment, the ability to rapidly engage cloud-based resources such as Contract Research Organizations (CRO’s), universities, custom applications or Big Data analytics– without compromising security is critical. This intersection of cloud access and the next generation of R&D and analytics create new partnerships for better results, but raises concerns regarding new threats protecting Intellectual property. Virginia-based Exostar addresses these issues by developing solutions that help customers collaborate with partners, regardless of the location or current environment, without compromising on security.

Exostar was originally formed to improve the ability of companies to work together more efficiently by accessing data through an easy-to-use, secure community environment. Exostar supports a variety of products and solutions to help customers collaborate, share information, manage vendors and supply chains, and optimize real world requirements including—R&D, resource externalization and access to external applications and information. “We are experts in Identity management, but our real focus is solving customers’ business challenges, not delivering a specific product or service,” said Richard Addi, CEO, Exostar. The key to this capability lies in the flexibility of the company’s Life Science Identity Hub platform called Secure Access Manager (SAM), which manages access to the cloud and virtually any application or information repository across the community. This cloud-based portal provides a single access point to the extended life science ecosystem of applications and other resources and also provides management functionality that allows “cleared” third-party employees to access applications and data.

Exostar provides secure cloud collaboration and identity access management to over 100,000 companies worldwide. Originally formed by some of the largest Aerospace & Defense companies, today Exostar supports 98 of the top 100 Aerospace and Defense companies as well as some of the largest organizations in Life Science, finance and other markets. “But our solutions are ideal for any customer who wants to collaborate or access applications and operate in a highly regulated environment,” says Addi.

We are experts in Identity management, but our real focus is solving our ustomers’ business challenges, not on delivering a specific product or service

Their legacy supporting the Aerospace and Defense industry resulted in a solution designed specifically to support the highly collaborative requirements of complex development (such as aircraft and defense systems) while mitigating risk and protecting intellectual property. This specialization facilitated Exostar’s entry into the life science industry as some of the large Pharma companies began to look to other industries for network security best practices. “A few of our large Pharma customers initially came to us because they wanted to duplicate the A&D industries ability to share information securely for joint development, testing and drug interaction analysis with their partners combined with a heightened level of tracking and accountability. Today, the customers utilizing our life science identity hub are not only improving the way they develop new drugs, they are making it easier for third parties to work with them, allowing them to respond to new opportunities faster. They’re also lowering everyone’s operating expense in the process by simplifying IT requirements,” says Addi.

One of the biggest benefits of the Exostar community structure is the way they gather customer requirements through customer governance councils. These councils help direct the solutionrequirements and product roadmaps to address their ultimate concerns. “We do not focus on specific technology for the sake of technology—our offerings are specifically designed as a part of larger solutions designed to solve the business challenges of our customers,” adds Mr.Addi.

Going forward, Exostar continues to look for specific interests in new security components, support for mobile applications and tools to help facilitate Big Data analytics and information sharing.