What were the drivers that helped launch the laboratory information management system (LIMS) and electronic laboratory notebook (ELN)? This article will trace the history of LIMS and ELN from their emergence into the future. Technology development did play a big role to be sure, but the desire of scientists to minimise time performing and analysing experiments provided the biggest push. By looking at the past, one can quite often get a better perspective of what the future will bring. There will be many issues to consider, primarily how to manage and preserve the vast amount of scientific electronic information that is being generated daily.

Over the past 40 years, the development of increasingly powerful computers has played a major role in the advancement of laboratory experimentation. Initially, the high processing capabilities of computers were exploited to perform complex calculations at unprecedented speeds, often offline to a company’s main frame.

The paper notebook has played a central role in the recording of the methods and results of scientific research for centuries. It has some strengths: portability, flexibility and (to some degree) incontrovertibility but in an enterprise environment it has many weaknesses. Chief among these is that the vast majority of information entered is lost to the enterprise unless substantial processes and governance structures are created to ensure its dissemination. However, even if these are in place, searching for relevant information is likely to be time-consuming and difficult since there is no automated search capability below the level of the physical book.

The growing popularity of Electronic Data Capture (EDC) is indicative of a broad recognition that EDC as a method of data capture offers significant realisable benefits. Developers of drugs that use EDC within their clinical research processes will have a significant competitive advantage, bringing new drugs and therapies to market faster and cheaper.

Today, electronic support for scientific research from the bench to the product is reality. For many years there has been an organic growth of different electronic systems in various areas of industry. The current challenge is to combine these electronic islands to form solid ground for integrated cost efficient systems. In this short article I'd like to show how the analytical research LIM system at Merck KGaA is linked with the ELN of the medicinal chemical research.