Evitria Streamlines Complex Antibody Workflows with Sapio Sciences

Introduction

As antibody constructs became more complex and customer expectations continued to rise, evitria found that its long-reliable spreadsheet system was no longer fit for purpose. What began as a search for better data management quickly evolved into a company-wide transformation to digitize core workflows, improve traceability and quality, and enable more informed, scalable decision-making. By replacing fragmented tools with a flexible, configurable platform, evitria laid the groundwork for the next phase of its scientific and operational growth.

Evolving beyond Excel to support a growing pipeline

Evitria is a Swiss-based contract research organization (CRO) specializing in custom antibody expression for biopharmaceutical innovators worldwide. With over 15 years of experience and more than 20,000 antibodies produced, the company supports discovery and preclinical programs for organizations ranging from small, virtual biotechs to top-20 global pharma companies.

Known for speed, quality, and scientific partnership, evitria has evolved its offering well beyond standard IgG production. Today, the team handles increasingly complex constructs such as bispecifics, fusion proteins, and immunocytokines, alongside growing demand for input on molecule design and project strategy. In addition to executing experiments, Evitria now plays a consultative role, advising clients on molecule design and helping those with limited internal expertise make informed scientific decisions.

While evitria’s scientific offering had advanced significantly, its internal systems had not kept pace. The team relied on a macro-heavy Excel database to manage sample tracking, experimental workflows, and reporting—a system originally built for a much simpler stage of the company’s evolution. As operations grew in complexity, this solution became a bottleneck.

Key challenges with the legacy Excel system included:

Fragile spreadsheets with hundreds of embedded macros
Limited scalability and maintainability
Lack of centralized traceability across workflows
Minimal automation and no integration with other systems
Inability to analyze or leverage historical data for predictive insight

Despite the volume of institutional knowledge captured over 15 years, the Excel-based system offered little visibility into operations and made it difficult to extract value from past projects.

When Stefan Schmidt joined the company as CEO, he found that much of the operational knowledge resided informally in people’s heads and spreadsheets. Coming from a GMP-regulated environment, he recognized opportunities to improve the company’s documentation practices. To lay the groundwork for digital transformation, he launched an operational excellence initiative focused on mapping every lab process from end to end. The result was a comprehensive, visual record—detailed workflows plotted out on long scrolls of paper that served as the blueprint for building a digital version of evitria’s operations.

Finding a scalable alternative to manual, macro-driven systems

With a clear understanding of its workflows, evitria began evaluating lab informatics solutions. The team assessed about ten platforms, but most failed to meet evitria’s dual need for powerful workflow automation and deep configurability.

“Some platforms were good at data capture, but weak on automation. Others felt rigid or overly templated,” Schmidt said. “Sapio struck the right balance. It offered the flexibility to replicate our processes, while also giving us access to a professionally maintained system with ongoing support.”

Crucially, Sapio’s ELN (electronic lab notebook) and LIMS (laboratory information management system) could mirror the logic and efficiencies built into evitria’s macro-based Excel system through partial customization. This configurability ensured the platform could support evitria’s specific workflows while remaining scalable and sustainable as the company continued to grow.

Implementation fueled by preparation and partnership

With just two evitria team members dedicated to the effort, close collaboration with Sapio was essential. Despite the lean team, the project reached near-complete implementation in about a year, a notable achievement given its scope and complexity. This success highlights the effectiveness of focused teamwork and strong partnership.

While the process wasn’t without its challenges, the partnership was grounded in clear goals and open communication, which helped accelerate progress. That same preparation revealed opportunities to improve lab operations beyond digitization. Translating physical workflows into a digital system forced the team to think more deliberately about what they did and why. In doing so, evitria identified areas where processes could be optimized both digitally and in the lab.

Real-time traceability, higher quality, and more informed decisions

Today, evitria’s lab operates with greater traceability, consistency, and transparency. Even before full go-live, the Sapio system has delivered several measurable improvements:

End-to-end traceability: All samples and operator actions are now tracked, allowing faster root-cause analysis and more reliable audits.
Stronger quality control: Integrated checks enable earlier detection of anomalies and more structured corrective actions.
Custom client reporting at scale: With Sapio’s Report Builder, evitria can quickly adapt QC reports to meet diverse client specifications, including unique layouts, data fields, and compliance formats.
Streamlined global collaboration: Previously, evitria’s business developers, who are spread across North America and Europe, had to navigate cryptic spreadsheets remotely. Now, they access consistent, centralized data from anywhere, with better links to CRM (customer relationship management) systems like Salesforce.

Areas like the 4-eyes principle and sample verification, which were difficult to enforce in Excel, will be implemented in the next Sapio version.

“We’re not just capturing data. We’re improving how we work,” said Schmidt. “It’s another level of quality.”

A future-ready platform that enables scale

As evitria scales its services, the flexibility of Sapio’s platform provides a solid foundation for innovation. From integrating new assay types to incorporating mass spectrometry or affinity data into QC reports, the platform allows the team to grow without reengineering its systems.

“Some of our clients have very specific requirements, down to how a gel image appears on a report,” Schmidt noted. “Now we can meet those needs without extra burden. And if we want to add a new measurement tomorrow, we don’t need to re-train the whole team or build a new system.”

Looking ahead, evitria is also exploring deeper integrations between Salesforce and Sapio to facilitate even smoother interactions between the commercial and lab teams.

Advice for other service providers

For Schmidt, the most critical step in any digital transformation isn’t selecting software; it’s understanding the lab itself. Before digitizing anything, teams need to define their workflows in detail and decide how closely the digital system should reflect real-world processes. Not every step, such as shaking a tube, needs to be replicated, but others are essential to capture. Knowing the difference is key.

He also emphasizes the importance of choosing a professionally supported platform over attempting to build everything in-house. While AI tools and custom scripts can be useful for specific, limited tasks, they can’t match the long-term viability and support that a dedicated platform like Sapio offers. For evitria, Sapio delivered the right combination of flexibility and reliability.

Building a competitive advantage through insight

For evitria, implementing Sapio isn’t just an operational upgrade. It’s a strategic investment.

“Ultimately, this gives us a competitive edge,” said Schmidt. “We can deliver results faster, with higher quality and deeper insight. That’s value our customers can feel.”

And with more time saved in the lab, Schmidt notes that the efficiencies gained through Sapio may finally free up time that was previously spent troubleshooting spreadsheets or chasing down data. With full implementation nearly complete, the platform is already helping the team work smarter, not longer, creating space for both professional focus and personal balance.