Vertex Pharmaceuticals
Case study
Vertex: the biotech company transforming its investment processes
The challenge
Vertex’s growth has resulted in a rapid rise in its cash reserves, and the company’s ability to manage liquidity and overnight cash reserves was a growing concern. Vertex required upgraded capabilities of its pre-trade compliance controls – namely understanding exposures and concentration risks – and needed to put guard rails in place to stay within its policy stipulations while reporting its position involved increased accuracy in data, accounting and timeliness of reports.
Elsewhere, the treasury team sought to compare Vertex investments with other funds in the market quickly and easily as well as understand how its exposures would change with potential trades. Finally, the company sought single sign-on and identity capabilities in line with its internal cybersecurity policies.
The solution
Vertex partnered with J.P. Morgan Asset Management to implement Morgan Money, the trading and analytics platform with transformative digital capabilities. Morgan Money offered superior, robust capabilities, replacing Vertex’s legacy platform with an efficient and effective solution. Each month, the company’s accounting team reconciles all interest accruals and creates journal entries for financial reporting. In the past, data would not be available for several days after each month end but now the Morgan Money platform delivers data in a timely, reliable and easy to read format.
Determining the appropriate investments for cash reserves and overnight liquidity requires a high degree of scrutiny, time and, importantly, data. Morgan Money has given Vertex the ability to pull historical data on a large universe of funds, both those that it is currently invested in and the broader market. Morgan Money has provided a one-stop shop for the company to model investments, improving transparency levels while also offering Vertex single sign-on capabilities, enhancing the ease and robustness of its security systems.
Best practice and innovation
The system has improved Vertex’s cash management processes on several levels but particularly with regard to controls, exposure reviews, reporting capabilities and cyber security. The system shift has been a major uplift, particularly regarding single sign-on capabilities and identity protection.
The Morgan Money platform has made significant improvements to Vertex’s cash management systems, saving time and enhancing accuracy. Prior to the system migration, the Vertex team would manually verify that any trades were within their guard rails, creating the risk for human error and adding time to each trade. With Morgan Money, all trades are run through these checks as they are placed in real time, providing additional controls and removing the need to manually verify that trades being placed fall within the required parameters.
Since implementing Morgan Money, Vertex has overhauled its reporting processes, benefitting the company’s monthly and quarterly reconciliation processes. The format in which Vertex receives data has also been transformed via a well configured and working format. Morgan Money delivers insights-driven investment information in real time. What would usually have taken hours or days now takes moments. With all the information just a few clicks away, Vertex is able to confirm its choices and make informed decisions or back up those investment choices it has already made. Vertex is able to pose a number of transactions and see what its exposures are before and after each trade, and then execute on the modelled portfolio all on the same screen.
The level of transparency and convenience has saved the company time and allowed it to action the insights provided by the Morgan Money platform in just a couple of clicks. Morgan Money has provided a much greater level of comfort by allowing Vertex teams to use their internal identity provider to access the platform. This additional security meets the company’s internal cybersecurity requirements and follows the company’s future-focused policies and thought processes.
Key benefits:
- Process efficiencies
- Return on investment (ROI)
- Increased automation
- Risk mitigated
- Improved visibility
- Manual intervention reduced
- Future-proof solution
- Exceptional implementation (budget/time)
- Improved key performance indicator (KPI) metrics
Vertex has enjoyed exponential growth in the past few years which changed how they thought about their cash management needs. In reviewing the marketplace, Vertex found that Morgan Money was the best solution for their needs. As Vertex expands their Treasury operations, Morgan Money will continue to provide solutions for their short-term investments needs with increased security, control, connectivity, and efficiency.
Paul Przybylski
Global Head of Product Strategy and Morgan Money
Vertex Pharmaceuticals is a global biotechnology company that invests in scientific innovation to create transformative medicines for people with serious diseases. The company has multiple approved medicines that treat the underlying cause of cystic fibrosis and is exploring therapies for other serious diseases, including sickle cell disease and kidney disease.