Merck's EngageZone receives CSO award

EngageZone, a cloud-based identity hub from pharmaceutical company Merck, has been named a CSO50 Award winner by CSO Magazine. The award honours organisations whose security projects have created outstanding business value and thought leadership for their companies.

The EngageZone External Partner Program is an enterprise-wide service connecting Merck with external partners. The cloud-based system was jointly developed by Merck and Exostar, enabling Merck to leverage Exostar’s Secure Access Manager and deliver a seamless, single sign-on user experience. Within this space, Merck and partners can safely share documents of any size, participate in discussions, contribute ideas, view meetings and connect with other members through a single point of entry.

Through EngageZone, Merck and other life sciences organisations are currently leveraging big data analytics, proprietary applications, multiple databases from access points virtually anywhere in the world, with full accountability and security across the entire community of users. The platform has been an integral component of Merck’s initiative to promote secure, productive collaboration with external partners in order to speed life-saving new drugs and therapies to market.

“The EngageZone team is honoured to be recognised for our role in developing a secure, compliant, collaborative environment,” stated Terry Rice, associate vice president, IT risk management and security and chief security information officer. “Over 700 partners have shared more than 500,000 documents this year alone, with full security assurance and accountability. EngageZone has successfully facilitated innovation and collaboration, streamlined development and costs, and protected the intellectual property of Merck and our extended partner community.”

Awards will be presented at the CSO50 Security Confab + Awards conference, to be held from 23-25 February 2015 at the Omni Amelia Island Plantation, Florida.