What is LANEXO®? The LANEXO® Inventory Manager is a software solution specifically designed for regulated analy- tical and QC laboratories. With our solution, we allow customers to digitally capture consumables data at the point of use in the lab. We help customers to manage their lab inventory more efficiently and safely, saving customers up to 70% of the time they spend on inventory tasks and making consumable storage safer and more compliant with regulations by providing information about the storage of incompatible chemicals. Using an Android or IOS app, customers can register consumables through RFID,enabling quick registrations, relocation and full traceability displayed in the audit trail, which can be exported. Customers can also connect other systems, e.g., LIMS, ELN, and ERP systems via the available open-end APIs, ensuring the interconnectivity of software solutions within their lab. How does LANEXO® address the need for compliance in labs today? The LANEXO® Inventory Manager is a validated software that supports laboratory compliance with FDA 21 CFR Part 11 and EU GMP Annex 11 because of several essential features such as using access cards that provide a unique digital signature for each user, user authentication requirements, and time-stamped audit trails. By capturing the data electronically via RFID labels, we ensure data traceability, reliability, and integrity. The risk of human error during data transcription gets eliminated; digital records can be found easily as every consumable registered to the system is immediately available. Additionally, we allow customers to set up user permissions according to your laboratory’s setup and approval processes. How does LANEXO® stand out from other products on the market? We are currently the only company who provides an inventory management solution by using RFID labels and a smartphone, which captures consumables data at point of use in the lab. We have a vendor-neutral solution as the RFID labels can be used on any type of consumable. In addition to Identifier and Location labels, we offer 12 RFID Smart Seal labels, which have sensors that detect when consumables are opened and then automatically calculate their expiry dates. From a safety perspective, the application will alert customers when incompatible materials are stored together in a location. All actions within the app are captured in an audit trail (e.g., consumable volumes, used by whom, when, and for what) and can be exported. Finally, it is easy to use and can be simply integrated into our customer’s existing workflows with an intuitive user interface. How cost-effective is the process compared to the former techniques? The goal of the LANEXO® Inventory Manager is to automate our customer’s daily inventory tasks in a compliant and safe way. This will be done by capturing, monitoring, and finding consumable information in a fast way. We have created a survey to help us understand how much time our customers are spending on manual repetitive tasks (e.g., registering consumables, locating consumables for an experiment, relocating consumables, opening consumables, calculating the expiry date, identifying expired stock, and more). Based on the survey, we have found that it takes an average of 500 minutes for a customer to go through all these manual repetitive tasks. By using the LANEXO® Inventory Manager, and digitalizing these tasks, it will only take an average of 30 minutes to go through these repetitive tasks, reducing the time spent on inventory tasks and effectively increasing the time for our customers’ lab personnel to focus on their primary function – being scientists. This interview was conducted by Dr. Cecilia Kruszynski, Editor of Wiley Analytical Science. Paul Podlech Paul Podlech is a product manager for the LANEXO® System Merck’s Digital Chemistry program. He joined Merck in 2017 and LANEXO® in 2020 and worked across different roles including marketing, quality, product ownership, and product management. His passion is to combine the skills he learned during his Business-Informatics studies with Life-Science to digitalize life in the lab.