nternal Audit provides important guidance for life science companies, which helps them manage risks effectively, and run strong control and governance processes.
By evaluating an organisation’s operations independently and objectively, Internal Audit helps identify potential risks and areas to improve. And by using robust Internal Audit techniques, the board of directors and managers can get invaluable insights and recommendations.
To provide maximum value for life science companies in particular, Internal Audit should:
- Be independent and objective
- Comprehensively understand the business and regulatory requirements
- Focus on delivering high value
- Use appropriate tools and technology
Be independent and objective
The Internal Audit team must be independent and objective. It should be clearly separate from business operations and day-to-day management. This allows the Internal Audit team to be unbiased and objective when assessing the organization’s operations and controls.
Comprehensively understand the business and regulatory requirements
Life science companies are often complex and dynamic, with a wide range of products, processes, and regulatory requirements. Internal Audit should have a deep understanding of the organization’s business and operations in order to identify and evaluate the key risks and controls within the organization.
Focus on delivering high value
Internal audit in life science companies should provide value-added advice and recommendations to management and the board. This means not only identifying problems and issues but providing practical and actionable solutions to help the organization materially improve operations and controls.
Use appropriate tools and technology
The best internal audit software on the market can help Internal Audit teams automate and streamline their tasks, access and analyze data easily and effectively, and provide more accurate and timely insights and recommendations. We recommend three levels of tools.
First, Internal audit checklists and guides ensure work is done consistently and effectively.
Second, purpose built Internal Audit software and systems for risk management, compliance, and financial reporting are key to manage processes and workstreams that can get very complicated.
Third, tools for data analysis and visualization are desirable.
Summary
Overall, Internal Audit is a crucial function for life science companies to check how effective an organization’s risk management, control, and governance processes are, and provide recommendations to improve them.
If you found this article helpful, you might be interested in our Internal Audit Guide that covers how Internal Audit Management platforms and Internal Audit tools can help your Internal Audit process. Read it here
