"The Archer team has been highly responsive and proactive in resolving issues. Their support has been critical to our procurement operations, and they have been a strong partner in advancing our CLM initiatives." -Ann Shrouder, Senior Director, Strategic Sourcing and Procurement, Aurinia Pharmaceuticals
ABOUT THE CLIENT
Aurinia Pharmaceuticals
Aurinia Pharmaceuticals is a commercial stage biopharmaceutical company listed on NASDAQ under AUPH. The company commercializes Lupkynis, the first FDA approved oral therapy for adults with lupus nephritis, and reported 283 million dollars in revenue for 2025. Aurinia operates a full commercial organization spanning supply, distribution, medical affairs, and patient services.
Procurement and strategic sourcing sit at the center of that operating model. Strategic Sourcing and Procurement leadership engaged Archer Insights to extend the existing NetSuite environment with the procurement automation and contract lifecycle management capability that a commercial scale pharma requires across manufacturing, clinical, patient services, and corporate spend.
THE CHALLENGE
Commercial pharma procurement does not fit a single template
A commercial pharma generating nearly 300 million dollars in revenue runs procurement across vendors that fall into very different categories. Manufacturing and supply, clinical and regulatory services, patient support, and corporate spend each follow their own approval logic and their own contract patterns. Off the shelf procurement configurations rarely fit all of these in a way that finance and sourcing can both rely on.
Contract lifecycle management is the same story with a different surface. Contract intake, redlining cycles, approval routing, signature, and downstream renewal tracking need to live in a system that finance can see into without asking sourcing for a spreadsheet. Aurinia needed a partner that would treat both procurement and CLM as live, evolving capabilities rather than one time configurations.
What was breaking down
- Manufacturing, clinical, patient services, and corporate spend each carried different approval logic that generic configurations did not handle cleanly
- Contract intake, redlining, signature, and renewal tracking did not live in a single system that finance and sourcing both relied on
- Vendor onboarding and approval routing across spend categories required configuration depth beyond standard NetSuite settings
- Spend visibility by category and vendor needed to flow into dashboards and saved searches that supported real sourcing decisions
- Issue resolution speed mattered: blocked buying decisions cost commercial momentum, not just process time
What was at stake
- Procurement decisions blocked by configuration issues would delay commercial operations rather than just sourcing administration
- Contract data living outside NetSuite would mean finance and sourcing operated against different facts at every quarterly review
- CLM advancement would stall if treated as a project rather than as an ongoing capability program
- Commercial scale spend without category specific approval logic would either over govern routine purchases or under govern strategic ones
- The team would lose the partner continuity that lets institutional knowledge of the configuration compound over time
WHY ARCHER INSIGHTS
A partner who treats procurement as a live capability
Aurinia needed a partner who operated as an ongoing extension of the sourcing and procurement team rather than a vendor running discrete projects. Archer Insights was selected based on its exclusive focus on life sciences companies and its track record of procurement and CLM work at commercial scale pharma organizations.
Archer brought prebuilt procurement configurations validated across comparable commercial pharma engagements, contract lifecycle management depth that connects intake through renewal inside NetSuite, and a responsiveness model that treats procurement and CLM as live capabilities to be tuned and advanced rather than configurations to be delivered and walked away from.
THE SOLUTION
Procurement and CLM tuned to the way Aurinia buys
Archer Insights operates as an ongoing partner to the Aurinia sourcing and procurement team. The engagement covers procurement workflows inside NetSuite and the CLM initiatives that surround them. Work is structured around responsiveness to operational issues as they surface and proactive advancement of the broader CLM roadmap.
Archer procurement and CLM flow
01 Vendor management
Onboarding, classification, approval
Vendors enter through a structured intake aligned to spend category
02 Contract lifecycle
Intake, routing, signature, storage, renewal tracking
Contracts visible to finance, sourcing, and legal in one record
03 Approval routing
Category specific logic for manufacturing, clinical, patient services, corporate
Approvals match the way the business actually buys
04 Purchasing
PO creation, approval, receipt, bill matching
Procure to pay runs end to end inside NetSuite
05 Reporting
Spend visibility by category, vendor, and function
Dashboards support real sourcing decisions
Procurement and CLM are tuned to the categories Aurinia actually operates in. Generic configurations were extended to fit the way the business buys.
WHAT ARCHER BUILT
01 Category specific approval logic across four spend types
Configurations were tuned to the way Aurinia categorizes vendor relationships and approves spend across functions. Manufacturing and supply, clinical and regulatory services, patient support, and corporate spend each carry their own approval logic. The configuration matches the way the business actually buys rather than forcing every category through the same template.
02 Contract lifecycle management connected to procurement
Contract intake, routing, and storage are aligned with the procurement environment so that finance, sourcing, and legal see the same record. Renewal tracking lives inside the system rather than in a sourcing team calendar. The contract and the vendor record stay connected through the lifecycle.
CLM advancement runs as an ongoing program. Periodic working sessions feed roadmap decisions back into Archer scope so the capability set advances with the business.
03 Vendor onboarding tuned to commercial pharma needs
Vendor onboarding flows are aligned to the categorization model. A clinical CRO does not enter the system the same way a commercial logistics provider does. The structured intake captures the documentation, compliance checks, and approval routing each category requires before vendor activation.
04 Procure to pay end to end inside NetSuite
Purchase order creation, approval routing, receipt, and bill matching all run inside NetSuite. Spend visibility flows into role based dashboards and saved searches that support real sourcing decisions rather than after the fact analysis. Finance and sourcing operate from the same data.
05 Responsive issue resolution and roadmap advancement
The engagement structure provides direct, responsive support inside the live environment when an issue blocks a sourcing or finance decision. Alongside that, proactive identification of next steps in the CLM roadmap keeps the capability set advancing. Institutional knowledge of the configuration stays inside the engagement rather than being lost between projects.
MODULES DEPLOYED
| Module | What it does | Impact at Aurinia |
|---|---|---|
| NetSuite Procure to Pay | Vendor management, PO and bill approvals, payments | Procurement runs end to end inside NetSuite across four spend categories |
| Contract Lifecycle Management | Intake, routing, signature, storage, renewal tracking | Contracts and vendors connected in one record visible to finance, sourcing, and legal |
| Vendor Onboarding | Structured intake by category with compliance documentation | Vendor activation aligned to commercial pharma needs |
| Approval routing | Category specific logic for manufacturing, clinical, patient services, corporate | Approvals match the way the business actually buys |
| Reporting and dashboards | Saved searches and role based dashboards for spend visibility | Sourcing decisions made against live data rather than period end reports |
OUTCOMES
What changed after go live
Operational results
- Procurement runs end to end inside NetSuite across manufacturing, clinical, patient services, and corporate spend
- Contract lifecycle from intake to renewal tracking lives in one connected record visible across functions
- Vendor onboarding flows aligned to spend category capture the compliance documentation each function requires
- Sourcing decisions run against live dashboards rather than period end reports
- Issue resolution speed protects commercial buying decisions rather than just sourcing administration
Finance and control results
- Finance, sourcing, and legal operate from one record for vendor and contract data
- Spend categorization flows through dashboards that support real sourcing analysis
- CLM advancement runs as an ongoing capability program rather than a fixed scope project
- The 283 million dollar commercial business runs against a procurement environment tuned to its operating profile
- Institutional knowledge of the configuration compounds inside the engagement rather than resetting between projects
THE ARCHER EDGE
Procurement as a live capability, not a delivered configuration
Most procurement implementations end at go live. Archer Insights operates procurement and CLM as ongoing capabilities to be tuned and advanced. The distinction matters for a commercial pharma buying across categories that do not stand still: manufacturing shifts, clinical pipelines change, patient services grow, corporate spend evolves.
Generalist partners configure off the shelf settings. Archer engineers the category specific approval logic that manufacturing supply, clinical CRO contracts, patient services, and corporate spend each require. The result is approval routing that matches the way the business actually buys rather than forcing every purchase through one template.
The partnership model itself is the differentiator. Responsiveness to operational issues today and proactive advancement of the CLM roadmap tomorrow keep the capability set advancing with the business. Institutional knowledge stays inside the engagement.
Extend NetSuite procurement and CLM with Archer
If your commercial pharma is running procurement across categories that do not fit a single configuration template, Archer Insights can show you what category specific approval logic and connected CLM look like inside NetSuite.
Extend NetSuite procurement and CLM with Archer
ABOUT ARCHER INSIGHTS
Archer Insights, LLC is a NetSuite Alliance Partner serving life sciences and healthcare organizations. The firm is an Inc. 5000 company and a 5 time consecutive NetSuite Alliance Partner Spotlight Award winner (2022 through 2026), recognized for biotech and biopharma specialization. Engagements cover new NetSuite implementations, enhancement services, proprietary software modules including the Archer AI Approval Module, and managed services.