AstraZeneca chooses Box for content sharing across 51,000 employees

Cloud firm's successful IPO starts with a bang

Pharmaceuticals firm AstraZeneca has announced that it has chosen Box to supply cloud and collaboration services across its 51,000 employees, who work in over 100 countries.

AstraZeneca will use Box to share content on the cloud, as well as employing secure collaboration tools with an emphasis on providing mobile access to this data.

The company is following up a strategy to be an "innovative leader" in the pharmaceutical space, with collaborative technology very much leading these plans.

"Technology is a key driver of innovation at AstraZeneca, and collaboration and mobility are two initiatives at the forefront of our strategy," said AstraZeneca CIO David Smoley.

"Box has become the industry standard in this space and we've chosen it to continue our drive toward efficiency, security and simplicity for all our employees."

AstraZeneca has also agreed to join a Box customer advisory board. As a member Box says it will help to "guide new technology development and consistently improve the service to Box users".

The pharmaceutical giant is an encouraging win for Box only weeks after its IPO. The cloud collaboration firm is now valued at around $20.00 per share with a total valuation in the region of $2bn.

The company only valued itself at $1.5bn when it went public, particularly as share values of other cloud firms seemed to be flat at the time. Cloud services companies such as Salesforce.com and NetSuite had ceased their meteoric rise and were experiencing bumps in the road.

Box initially filed for IPO in early 2014, which founder and CEO Aaron Levie has since admitted was "too early".

Rumours of IPOs followed in April and June last year, after which Box went quiet on the subject. The firm finally went public in January 2015.