Bioscience Company Chooses Microsoft Dynamics AX to Improve Support for Compliance With Industry Rules

PURE Bioscience picks Microsoft technology over competitors for its ease of use, scalability and manufacturing capabilities.


REDMOND, Wash. — March 2008 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that PURE Bioscience has selected Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 to speed and integrate its business processes, helping to support the company’s compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and with the requirements of numerous regulatory authorities, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the United States. Microsoft Dynamics AX is a comprehensive business-management solution for midsize and larger organizations that offers a high degree of scalability, customizability and full industry-specific functionality. It helps optimize and centralize supply chain processes and improves real-time visibility into operations.

PURE Bioscience, headquartered in El Cajon, Calif., develops and markets technology-based bioscience products that provide nontoxic solutions to numerous global health challenges. As a public company, PURE needed to remain compliant with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. It also sought a way to produce its financials more rapidly because its growth would move the company into the category of an accelerated Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filer during 2008.

PURE had been relying significantly on legacy systems and spreadsheets for financial operations, but management saw a need to both integrate its data and find advanced technology for automating its processes to help manage the significant growth and increased complexity that the company anticipated.

The company evaluated a number of enterprise resource planning solutions to support its manufacturing and financial requirements, including FourthShift Edition for SAP Business One, before selecting Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0.

“We chose Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 for multiple reasons,” said Michael L. Krall, CEO of PURE Bioscience, “including ease of use, the Microsoft look and feel that employees are accustomed to, the ability for the company to grow with the solution, the ability of the solution to handle process manufacturing, favorable scalable pricing for a medium-sized business, well-defined validation methodologies, speed to go live, and the ability to continue to meet our SEC reporting obligations as we transition out of the small-business reporting category.”

Working with PURE, Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Advanced Systems Integration Inc. of Lake Forest, Calif., will implement Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 Advanced Management Edition with additional source code that allows customization of proprietary processes and procedures that could not be met by any other solution.

“The ability to purchase and add modules, such as Production II or Shop Floor Control, in the future as we grow played an important part in our decision,” Krall said. “The new system will be integrated seamlessly with other Microsoft products that PURE has been using, including the 2007 Microsoft Office system, Windows XP Professional, SQL Server 2005 and Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition.”

“We expect Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 to enhance our ability to manage the anticipated growth in our bioscience technology across multiple industries and applications, both within the United States and internationally,” said Andrew J. Buckland, CFO at PURE Bioscience.

PURE Bioscience foresees the following benefits from its implementation of Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0:
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Support for growth. One of the primary objectives of the implementation is to provide PURE with a technology that will allow for management of considerable growth.
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Industry-specific requirements. In addition to financial-related regulatory compliance, Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 will support processes that enable PURE to meet regulatory reporting obligations to the U.S. EPA and to maintain its FDA Current Good Manufacturing Practices certification for the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients. Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 ensures data integrity and transparency using security features while reporting variances and communicating material events.
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Improved reporting. Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 will enable the company to produce statutory accounting and management information more rapidly than before, helping it to remain compliant with regulatory reporting while allowing management to make business decisions that are more timely and effective.
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Time savings. Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 will significantly shrink the time needed to produce financial reports, supporting the company’s needs for faster reporting as it becomes an accelerated SEC filer.
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Accuracy of data. Instead of relying on spreadsheets and multiple systems and processes, PURE will take advantage of the Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 capability to integrate many routines into one, eliminating repetitive data entry and thereby increasing accuracy.
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Better planning. Both business planning and resources planning are expected to improve with PURE’s new Microsoft technology.
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More efficient supply chain management. Previously, supply chain management was largely a manual process for PURE. Now it will be automated to a large extent, providing the company with the capability to support the larger and more complex manufacturing processes that it anticipates.

“PURE Bioscience is realizing the value that Microsoft Dynamics AX brings to businesses in helping them meet the specific needs of their own industries,” said Michael Park, corporate vice president for U.S. Dynamics Business at Microsoft. “As the manufacturing and regulatory environments become more complex, Microsoft technology is simplifying and integrating processes to enable businesses to accelerate their growth and fully employ their competitive advantages, while helping to ensure they remain compliant with government and industry regulations.”