Invisible Drag: Why labs lose a full day of science every week and what's actually causing it.

Somewhere in your lab, a scientist with a PhD is chasing a supplier. An equipment maintenance contract has lapsed and nobody noticed. Harvard Business Review found that 41% of skilled workers’ time disappears into low-value tasks. In labs, that figure has a name: Invisible Drag.

In this 20-minute session from London Lab Live 2026, MyAmici’s Founder and CEO Caroline Briggs draws on three decades of experience from the bench to global pharma operations to show what’s really holding labs back, and why the labs winning today aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest AI budgets.

 

What you'll take away

  • A name for what you’ve been feeling. The hidden friction every lab experiences but rarely articulates and why it costs more than most operations leaders realise.
  • Where the time actually goes. From supplier chasing to missed maintenance to the long tail of low-value tasks that fragment scientific focus.
  • Why AI alone won’t fix it. The labs pulling ahead aren’t always the ones with the largest AI investments. They’re the ones with the operational backbone to support what AI promises.
  • What to do about it. Practical thinking on where to start, drawn from three decades of working across the lab, the supply chain, and global pharma operations.

 

About the speaker

Caroline Briggs is the Founder and CEO of MyAmici. She has spent over three decades in life sciences from the lab bench through to leadership roles in global pharma operations and built MyAmici to remove the procurement and operational friction quietly slowing labs down. MyAmici now supports more than 200 laboratories across the globe with smarter purchasing, asset management, and inventory control.

 

The backbone comes before the breakthrough. If you’d like to see how MyAmici helps labs cut procurement admin by up to 50% and reclaim time for science, book a demo or get in touch with the team.

Insights, ideas and insider knowledge

Dive into a curated mix of thought leadership, industry insight, and behind-the-scenes biotech lab wins.