Lab Animal Management Software for Pharmaceutical Research

Why Pharma Needs Purpose-Built Colony Management

Pharmaceutical research facilities manage some of the most complex animal colonies in the world. A single site may run dozens of concurrent studies across multiple species, each with its own IACUC protocol, dosing schedule, observation regimen, and billing codes. The software that tracks these animals must handle:

• Multi-species support at scale: mice, rats, zebrafish, rabbits, dogs, pigs and non-human primates, each with distinct reproduction models, housing requirements and observation protocols.
• GLP-compatible audit trails: every change to every record, animal identity, housing, breeding, health observations, dosing, must be logged with timestamp, user identity, and before/after values. The audit trail must be queryable, exportable, and retained indefinitely.
• Study-to-animal traceability: every animal must be linked to its IACUC protocol, study ID, and investigator. When an inspector or auditor asks "show me every animal on protocol 2024-0037," the answer must be instant.
• Procurement at scale: ordering, receiving and tracking animals from multiple vendors, with quarantine tracking and health status verification.
• Pharmacy inventory: controlled substances, analgesics, anaesthetics and experimental compounds tracked with expiry alerts, lot numbers and usage logs.

How Colony.care Serves Pharma R&D

GLP-Ready Audit Trail

Colony.care records every create, update and delete operation on every record with timestamp, user identity, IP address and the full before/after state. The audit log is queryable by record type, user, date range and action, and it retains records indefinitely by default, no retention policy to configure, no automatic expiry. Export the audit trail as CSV or JSON for regulator submission.

IACUC Protocol Management

Link every animal to its governing IACUC protocol. Track protocol approval dates, expiration dates, and animal counts per protocol. Generate annual protocol usage reports with one click, the data is already in the system, structured and queryable. No more spreadsheet reconciliation at the end of the reporting period.

Multi-Species, Multi-Model

Colony.care tracks 25 species with the correct reproduction model for each: litter-based for mice, rats, rabbits, dogs, cats and pigs; single-offspring gestation with ultrasound milestones for NHP; egg-laying with incubation and hatch tracking for avian; clutch-based with developmental staging for zebrafish and amphibians; colony-based with caste tracking for ants and termites. One platform, one data model, no workarounds.

Procurement & Pharmacy

Order animals from vendors, track shipments, log receiving inspections and quarantine periods, all within the same system that will track the animals throughout their lives. The pharmacy module tracks drug inventory with lot numbers, expiry alerts, usage logs and reorder thresholds. When a regulator asks for the controlled-substance log, you export it, you do not rebuild it.

Institutional SSO & SCIM

Pharma IT departments require SAML-based single sign-on and automated user provisioning. Colony.care ships with SAML SP support and SCIM provisioning built into the Lab tier , not gated behind an enterprise SKU. Microsoft and Google OAuth are also supported, with automatic account linking by email domain.

Surgery & Clinical Tracking

Schedule surgeries, log anaesthesia and analgesia, record post-operative observations on a structured timeline, and generate surgery reports. All clinical observations , body weight, clinical scores, food and water intake, dosing records, are timestamped and attributable to the observer.

Deployment: Minutes, Not Months

Colony.care is ready the day you sign up:

• No installation: browser-based. Your IT team does not provision servers.
• 2-minute setup: create an account, name your project, start adding data.
• SSO on day one: SAML configuration takes minutes, not a procurement cycle.
• Migration by CSV: export your data from SoftMouse.NET, PyRAT or tick@lab to CSV, or to a spreadsheet you save as CSV, then import it. Column mapping, dry run, commit when ready.

FAQ

Is Colony.care GLP-certified?

Colony.care is designed to support GLP-compatible workflows, with an indefinite audit trail, electronic signatures, protocol linking, and structured data export, but the platform itself does not hold a GLP certification. GLP compliance is a facility-level determination that depends on your SOPs, validation procedures and operating practices. Colony.care provides the technical capabilities (audit trail, user attribution, data integrity) that support GLP compliance.

Does Colony.care support FDA 21 CFR Part 11?

Colony.care provides the technical controls that align with Part 11 requirements: unique user accounts with role-based permissions, an immutable audit trail with electronic signatures, and complete data export capability. As with GLP, Part 11 compliance is a facility-level determination that includes your SOPs and validation procedures.

Can Colony.care handle a multi-site pharma deployment?

Yes. The Organization tier supports multi-site deployments with centralized administration, cross-site reporting, and per-site project isolation. Contact sales for pricing and configuration.

Where is the data hosted?

Colony.care offers data residency in North America (US/Canada) and the European Union, with region selection at account creation. Data is encrypted in transit (TLS 1.3) and at rest (AES-256). Automated backups run daily with geo-redundant storage.