RxCelerate is a Cambridge-based outsourced drug discovery and development company providing bespoke scientific services to biotechnology and pharmaceutical organisations. The company supports clients across the full early-stage research lifecycle, from antibody and small-molecule discovery through to preclinical development and project management.
As demand for its services grew, RxCelerate experienced rapid expansion. While this growth validated its scientific expertise, it also created operational pressure. The organisation needed to scale its internal operations while maintaining the quality, collaboration, and responsiveness that its clients relied on.
The company’s growth exposed a common problem for scaling scientific organisations: processes that once worked well in a smaller team were no longer sustainable.
Project information sat in different places across departments, making it difficult to track progress or understand dependencies. Managing project requests, quotations, and approvals was time-consuming and inconsistent. Leaders lacked a clear view of active work across the business, and allocating highly specialised scientific staff became increasingly complex.
At the same time, reporting required significant manual effort, and valuable information – such as why a project was declined – was often lost. RxCelerate recognised that to continue growing, it needed a more structured project management infrastructure, centralised data, and improved visibility across the organisation.
RxCelerate partnered with Prodactive to design and implement a customised project and resource management solution built in Smartsheet.
Rather than simply deploying software, the engagement focused on building processes alongside the platform. Together, the teams created a structured workflow that begins with a project intake form. Requests are reviewed and approved by department heads, quotes are assigned and tracked, and once a project is agreed, finance is automatically notified to begin invoicing. Each stage of the project lifecycle became visible to the relevant teams.
Executives and department leaders gained real-time oversight through dashboards, while automated notifications ensured tasks were completed and dependencies were clear across departments. The platform also introduced portfolio-level reporting, allowing management to monitor performance and identify areas for improvement.
The next step focused on resource management. By introducing capacity planning and integrated timesheets, RxCelerate could see staff availability before committing to new work. This allowed projects to be staffed accurately and ensured scientists were neither over-allocated nor under-utilised. The system also replaced legacy tools and expanded into other operational areas, including logistics, health and safety, and inventory tracking.
Thanks to Prodactive and Smartsheet, projects have never been more organised. Our scientists can look at time plans and spot dependencies across departments, enabling them to plan and allocate resources more efficiently.
Working with Prodactive has been a wonderful experience for a small CRO like us. They have aided us tremendously to implement Smartsheet by customising the tool to our needs. Their team possesses the creativity and knowledge required to build customised assets which is useful is solving the project related problems unique to biotech industry. Highly recommend Rich and his team!
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