Every morning, Dr. Sarah Chen sits down with her coffee and opens her browser to begin what has become a familiar ritual: checking PubMed, Web of Science, and half a dozen other databases for new research related to her team's work on Alzheimer's biomarkers. By lunch, she's skimmed through abstracts, bookmarked promising papers, and added dozens more articles to her ever-growing "to read" pile. Sound familiar?
If you're leading a research team in 2025, this scenario probably hits close to home. But here's the uncomfortable truth: while Dr. Chen is manually sifting through literature, her competitors might be using automated systems to identify the same breakthrough research weeks or even months earlier.
Let's put this in perspective. The average pharmaceutical company tracks research across hundreds of different areas simultaneously. A single researcher might need to monitor literature related to 15-20 different indications, compounds, or biomarkers. With over 2 million new scientific articles published annually, the math becomes daunting quickly.
Consider this: if your team of 200 researchers each spends just 2 hours daily on literature review (a conservative estimate), that's 400 hours of human labor every single day. At an average fully-loaded cost of $100 per hour for senior researchers, you're looking at $40,000 daily, or over $10 million annually, just on manual literature scanning.
While the financial burden is staggering, the real cost lies in something far more damaging—the opportunity cost of delayed discovery.
In drug development, timing is paramount. A biomarker identified six months earlier could accelerate your Phase II trials. A competitor analysis completed weeks sooner might reveal market opportunities or threats that reshape your entire research strategy. The compound interaction study you discover late might have saved months of lab work.
We regularly work with pharmaceutical companies where large teams of researchers must search through and synthesize hundreds of research areas across many databases to identify and monitor relevant biomarkers and drug targets. These teams consistently tell us they're struggling to process the sheer volume of information fast enough to make fully informed decisions.
These ripple effects extend beyond individual projects. When research teams are buried in manual processes, they lose their most valuable asset: time to think, analyze, and innovate.
Many organizations try to solve this problem by subscribing to more databases. We see companies paying for six, eight, or even ten different research platforms, thinking that more access equals better insights. But this approach often creates new problems:
Many organizations come to us after struggling with six or more separate research subscriptions that still leave them unable to efficiently find and organize relevant research across their areas of focus, such as identifying new drug targets, compounds, and biomarkers, without significant manual effort.
Here's where the conversation gets interesting. The companies that are setting the pace in research today aren't necessarily the ones with the biggest R&D budgets—they're the ones that have figured out how to systematically leverage the world's research output.
Think about how other industries have evolved. Marketing teams don't manually scan every social media platform for brand mentions—they use automated monitoring tools. Financial analysts don't manually read every earnings report—they use systems that surface relevant insights automatically. Yet somehow, in research—where staying current with literature is arguably more critical—many teams are still operating like it's 1995.
The organizations that are pulling ahead share some common characteristics:
They automatically search and rank research: Instead of manual literature review, they use systems that can automatically search and rank millions of research articles beyond simple abstracts and metadata in a single database.
They leverage research across multiple purposes: Rather than purchasing research for single uses, they track research already purchased and leverage it for multiple purposes across their organization.
They monitor literature alongside their workflows: Instead of literature review being a separate activity, they monitor the literature alongside their custom workflows and research processes.
If you're leading a research organization, here are the questions you should be asking:
The good news is that the technology to address these challenges exists today. Modern research platforms can automatically monitor millions of articles, surface relevant insights, and integrate with your existing workflows. These tools have proven their effectiveness in processing and analyzing information at scale. The real question is whether your organization will adapt quickly enough to maintain its competitive edge.
After all, in a world where knowledge is power, the ability to systematically harness the world's research output has evolved from a differentiator to operational necessity for serious research organizations.