An organisation’s digital communications say many things about how efficiently it is run – so the Sitemorse quarterly web benchmarks of the global life science sector can help spot the companies leading the field.

Websites, mobile and social are the way most people find out about companies, so it’s essential they work efficiently to give users a good experience. Our testing is a key indicator that a site is error-free and working well.

Our Q4 2013 Global Life Science INDEX rates the most efficient sites in the sector as those of Idenix Pharmaceuticals based in Massachusetts in the USA, Prostrakan, UK subsidiary of Japan’s Kyowa Kirin pharmaceutical company, and Japan’s Kyorin Pharmaceuticals Group, which has been trading for the last 90 years.

Ensuring stakeholders can get the information they need and at the same time keeping the highest standards and exceeding compliance has to be the target for anyone taking the web seriously, so to score eight or above in the Sitemorse website INDEX rating really demonstrates that a company is leading the field.

Top place for the second quarter in succession goes to Idenix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. which is involved in the discovery and development of drugs for the treatment of human viral and other infectious diseases.

Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts USA, its clinical development operations and drug discovery operations are conducted in the USA and the company’s European laboratories in Montpellier, France. We scored the Idenix site 8.3/10 overall, a slight improvement over last quarter’s INDEX score.

Just behind Idenix in second place this time with a score of 7.9 in our automated testing is the site of ProStrakan Group PLC, which is owned by Kyowa Hakko Kirin Co., Ltd (KHK) of Japan and is one of Europe’s fastest growing specialty pharmaceutical companies. Prostrakan’s site retains second place for the second successive quarter and maintains its score.

Third-placed Kyorin Pharmaceuticals Group is based in Tokyo and was formed in 1923. These days it manufactures and sells prescription medicines, offering oral antibacterial agents, agents for gastritis and gastric ulcer; and vitamin D3 capsules among others.

Taking fourth and fifth place in this quarter’s INDEX are the sites of Mylan UK, a leading developer and supplier of generic medicines and Hertfordshire-based Biotecnol, which is developing the next generation of antibody-based therapeutics for the treatment of diseases in a vast number of therapeutic areas based on its proprietary Tribody™ technology.

Sitemorse has been benchmarking and rating the websites of businesses and organisations in a number of sectors for a decade. The full results from this and other recent surveys can be seen on our website. 

The best-known names in global life sciences do not always have the best websites, in our experience. But this time we have noted improvements in the websites of a number of the larger companies. Bayer Schering Pharma has risen 45 places in the INDEX to 29th, while Roche rises 16 places to 49th overall, their second significant rise this year. Diabetes specialist Novo Nordisk is up 67 places to 4th position, Shire rises 52 to 65th, and AstraZeneca, which dropped back last quarter, recovers 12 places to 72th overall.

Top risers this time are Biogen Idec UK (+84), QLT (+93), Galderma (+110), Biogen Idec (+113) and top climber, Intas Biopharmaceuticals (+132 places to 96th overall) 

Fast-loading web pages are important, so we test the average response time for each site. A response time above 0.75 seconds can have a negative effect on user experience. Mylan UK, Servier UK, Otsuka Pharmaceuticals Europe, Merz UK and Ipsen are in the top five here, with average response times in Otsuka’s case just 0.01 seconds on average for a tested page to load.

Accessibility, backed by law, remains a key criterion for any website. Highest scorers in this sector are Canadian R&D company Apotex, and Eisai of Japan, both rated as 8/10 in our tests

About the INDEX

The quarterly INDEX Website Review, powered by the Sitemorse software platform, is an important independent benchmark that clearly shows how websites are performing, meeting compliance levels and satisfying their users. It’s also a key indicator for website managers who, while always wanting to be at the top of their game, could be hampered by poor-performing suppliers, non-compliant legacy content or content management systems that often fail to spot errors affecting user experience.

Sitemorse services such as Governisation and the Web Management Toolkit immediately find the issues that affect web users the most on any website, help demonstrate real improvement and ensure you have control and confidence in your web presence.

They will help you minimise unnecessary risk, issues covering everything from compliance with web standards to helping you deal with malware, protect your brand across even a large web presence, and enhance search engine optimisation to help more potential customers find you. They can help spotlight content that may need updating, issues with staff training and support, and focus supplier management. We offer a confidential internal 'company wide' website testing and benchmarking service - allowing you to review the position of all the sites in your organisation. Contact us to request further details and / or an example.

More information

• More information about our surveys and what they test can be found on our website http://www.sitemorse.com/index/