Veeva Systems Expands Cloud Business in Hacienda

By Zoe Francis, Hacienda Network Staff Writer

Software Targeted to the Life Sciences Industry

The next blockbuster drug that bursts onto the market could owe its success, in part, to cloud software innovator Veeva Systems.

The Hacienda-based software pioneer specializes in cloud-based solutions for the life sciences industry, the bulk of which is pharmaceutical companies.

"Our goal is to build cloud solutions that are addressing the most critical needs of the life sciences industry," CFO Tim Cabral explained. "We're helping companies with their two most strategic challenges - bringing products to market faster and then promoting and marketing them once commercialized."

Veeva has risen to the top of the cloud software industry in a relatively short period of time. The company was founded in downtown Pleasanton in 2007 and moved to Hacienda in 2009. It is currently moving to a new 141,000 square foot Hacienda location that will nearly quadruple the size of the company's headquarters.

The company offers products in three strategic areas for management - customer relationship, content and customer master data. The three product categories work together to make sure companies are staying on top of industry regulations while promoting their products to the properly targeted medical field.

The challenge pharmaceutical sales representatives face is that they are not selling to the end user, the patient, but are instead trying to educate doctors so they can get the right medications to the right patients.

"There is incredible regulation about the life sciences industry around the interaction and what (company) representatives say to doctors," Cabral noted.

The Vault suite of applications "helps our customers ensure that they're managing the creation updates and approval of regulation content as well as enabling employees who work with customers to access that content. And they know when they access it, they're not running afoul of regulation."

The company's latest offering is Network, a rich database of healthcare providers that is timely and accurate to best help pharmaceutical companies understand their customers.

"If you think about a doctor, you need to know their specialty and what licenses they have," Cabral said. "In order for a pharmaceutical company to ensure they are providing the right doctors with the right information, they need to have a very rich, up-to-date and relevant database of these customers."

Veeva expects to cross the $300 million mark in revenue this fiscal year, ranking it among the 25 largest Bay Area software companies, according to the San Francisco Business Times.

The founders previously worked with companies that specialize in horizontal cloud software, meaning one application can serve multiple industries. They opted to establish Veeva with vertical cloud software, meaning it targets one specific industry.

"The regulatory nature of life sciences requires very specific software," Cabral said. "Life sciences companies could take a generic application and really do a lot of work to customize it, but typically they look to companies like Veeva to build that specific functionality to meet their needs."

The life sciences industry is unique because "there aren't a lot of industries, like (pharmaceutical), that don't sell products directly, they educate the market," he said. "There aren't a lot of industries that have to go through such rigorous processes just to get products approved."

Veeva hit the cloud market right when that technology was taking off, creating a huge demand for cloud-based software.

"We picked an industry that's one of the largest in the world and has a big need for cloud solutions," Cabral said. "The advantage of cloud is the incredible agility it affords and the strategic advantage of continuous innovation delivered via the cloud. If I have Veeva, I just open up the software and go to work. I don't have to do a lot of heavy lifting around managing that software."

Learn more about Veeva Systems at veeva.com.

Photo: Hacienda's Veeva Systems, Chief Financial Officer, Tim Cabral.

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