Harkcom honored for creating the industry-standard legal framework that accelerates drug-discovery contracting worldwide

Scientist.com, the leading R&D procurement-orchestration platform for the life sciences, today announced that its General Counsel, Sarah Harkcom, has been named Innovation Trailblazer at the 2025 European Legal Innovation & Technology Awards.

Harkcom was recognized for architecting a unified, cross-border contracting model now adopted by many of the world’s top pharmaceutical companies and contract research organizations (CROs). The framework has already supported more than $2.5 billion in outsourced research, enabling scientists to launch critical experiments in days rather than weeks or months.

“Sarah’s vision reshaped how the pharma industry does business,” said Kevin Lustig, PhD, CEO and Founder of Scientist.com. “Her streamlined legal model removes friction for both buyers and suppliers, giving researchers faster access to the services they need to discover life-changing cures.”

Key achievements

• Industry standardization: Created global template agreements that underlie most Scientist.com transactions.
• Accelerated R&D: Reduced contract-cycle times from months to days, a breakthrough that proved vital during the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to speed progress against other diseases.
• Global impact: The model’s cross-jurisdictional design delivers uniform compliance and efficiency for partners in 80 countries.

The awards ceremony took place on May 28 in Milan, Italy. For a full list of honorees, visit the European Legal Innovation & Technology Awards website.

About Scientist.com

Scientist.com makes it easy for life-science teams to find, vet and order the research services and products they need—often in days instead of weeks. Its online marketplace brings together 6,000+ pre-qualified suppliers across 1,000-plus research categories, all with built-in regulatory and data-privacy controls. The platform powers secure sourcing hubs for 20 of the world’s top 30 pharmaceutical companies, 100+ biotech firms and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). Founded in 2007 and continually enhanced with AI tools, Scientist.com helps scientists spend less time on paperwork and more time on discovery. Learn more at https://www.scientist.com.

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Scientist.com's legal framework has supported more than $2.5 billion in outsourced research, enabling scientists to launch critical experiments in days rather than weeks or months.