Seal vs LabVantage

1LabVantage and Seal, side by side.

LabVantage and Seal both put more than a LIMS on one platform. LabVantage builds its laboratory informatics platform on its LIMS, with ELN, LES, SDMS and analytics in a single architecture, licensing model and services contract.¹ Seal configures laboratory, manufacturing and quality workflows on one platform around a shared ontology, so the batch a sample came from and the investigation a result opens are part of the same records as the result itself.

2What LabVantage is built for.

LabVantage is built for organisations that want one vendor for their laboratory informatics, from the research laboratory to QC.¹ LabVantage Solutions, Inc. is headquartered in Somerset, New Jersey, and says it has driven laboratory digital transformation for more than 40 years.² Customers at more than 1,500 sites use its software, supported from nearly 40 locations.³ It serves pharma and biotech, biobanking, diagnostics, food and beverage, oil and gas, contract testing, public health, forensic and government laboratories.⁴

The LIMS covers the sample life cycle from sample and consumables management to environmental monitoring and stability, laboratory execution with an integrated ELN, LES and workflow designer, and interfacing through an integrated SDMS, SAP integration, a Waters Empower connector and RESTful web services. LabVantage lists configuration management and transfer among its tools.⁴ The interface is browser-based and HTML5-compliant, configured with drag-and-drop tools rather than a proprietary language, and its Web Page Designer stores configuration as metadata that drives the runtime and its business logic. The platform runs on Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server.⁵ The LES guides technicians through electronic worksheets, with reminders to check instrument calibration, reagent expiry and sample size, and routes completed worksheets for approval by electronic signature.⁶

For pharma and biotech, LabVantage sells what it calls a pre-validated, pre-configured pharmaceutical LIMS, with batch management, stability, consumables, environmental monitoring and label printing, pre-validation in line with GAMP 5, and compliance with 21 CFR Part 11 and EU Annex 11. It is deployed as validated SaaS or on premises.⁷ LabVantage SaaS runs on Amazon Web Services in two forms: Enterprise SaaS, which allows customisation and custom integrations, and Standard SaaS, which is multi-tenant at most levels and does not permit changes to core business logic or custom integrations.⁸

In March 2026 LabVantage launched CORTEX, a cloud-native platform in which AI agents orchestrate laboratory tasks inside the core LIMS, with worksheet, sample management and stability study assistance and automated compliance monitoring.² LabVantage lists human-in-the-loop approvals and escalations among CORTEX’s capabilities.⁹

3How a value reaches its sample and specification.

Both products tie a value to a precise identity and evaluate it against a versioned specification. They differ in what the value is connected to beyond the laboratory.

In LabVantage, a data item is identified by its record type and keys, its parameter list with version and variant, the data set, the parameter and type, and the replicate.¹⁰ Specifications are versioned and added to samples; when a specification is applied, the value entered is evaluated against it, and a specification can be marked as OOS-generating.¹¹ LabVantage treats logging, receipt, result entry, review and approval as stages in the sample life cycle, locks data against unauthorised change, and groups samples, tests and manufacturing stages into batches that support product genealogy.¹²

In Seal, specifications are also structured, versioned records, and each result is evaluated against the version assigned to it. Seal then keeps the study, the physical event and the work still to do on the same records. In the example in Seal’s stability blueprint, study ST-026 runs under protocol ST-P-026 v02 in chamber CH-02. Four impurity results sit below the assigned 0.50% limit, each higher than the last, and month nine has no reportable result linked. Seal does not count the missing result as a pass: it becomes owned work, traced to its pull, alongside a review of the values already recorded. If a method or specification changes during the study, each result keeps the version it used, and the effect on comparability is assessed under the approved analysis plan rather than by overwriting earlier evidence.

An outside-limit result in Seal opens an investigation on those same records, and the laboratory review then contributes to batch disposition alongside manufacturing exceptions and quality events.

4Pre-validated software, and changes after go-live.

LabVantage pre-validates the software it delivers. Seal keeps the evidence with each change. In both cases your team remains responsible for the intended use and the release decision.

LabVantage says its SaaS is delivered with vendor validation that provides installation verification and testing evidence against common laboratory practice.⁸ Its validation services use automated testing under a CSA or CSV approach, aligned with 21 CFR Part 11, EU Annex 11 and GAMP 5, and LabVantage presents them as replacing the in-house testing customers typically perform for acceptance and as scaling to later upgrades and patches.¹³ On premises, the customer decides when or whether to upgrade, personalise or customise.⁸

In Seal, the user requirements, functional, design and configuration specifications sit with the configuration they describe. A specification revision is prepared as a changeset: it does not reassign work in progress or rewrite issued certificates, and its impact is reviewed for each affected sample, method and certificate before it is assigned to future testing. When the changeset is prepared for review, its selected acceptance tests run, and publication requires current passing results. Failures and retests stay with the candidate revision.

To compare them, ask each to take one specification change from proposal to release while a study is in progress, and inspect which results kept the earlier version.

5Where LabVantage is the better fit.

LabVantage is the better fit when you want one vendor and one licence across a wide laboratory estate.

• You want LIMS, ELN, LES, SDMS and analytics under a single architecture, licensing model and services contract, activating components as you need them.¹
• You want a pharmaceutical LIMS delivered pre-configured and pre-validated, with validated SaaS for a laboratory with limited IT resources.⁷
• You need on-premises control over upgrades, or your IT standard is Oracle or SQL Server.⁸⁵
• Other systems must create batches and samples in the LIMS and receive results back. LabVantage’s REST and SOAP web services apply its core business logic to those transactions.¹⁴
• You run biobanking, diagnostics, forensic or public health laboratories alongside pharma.⁴
• You want AI agents working inside the LIMS itself, which is how LabVantage describes CORTEX.²

6Where Seal is the better fit.

Seal is the better fit when the laboratory is one part of a process that should change as one.

• Your laboratory results should feed batch disposition and quality decisions without copies. In Seal’s shared ontology a sample belongs to a batch, a result comes from a test, and an investigation links to the affected work.
• Your laboratory, manufacturing and quality teams work from one set of records, so a corrective action can be released as a verified change to the workflow itself and measured on the runs that follow.
• You expect to keep changing the process. Each improvement becomes a new process version with its specifications, test evidence and approvals, and earlier runs keep the version they used.
• You want an agent that prepares changes for people to release. Neil turns an approved specification into a proposed configuration, traces a missing timepoint to its evidence and drafts the controlled change. In line with the EU’s draft GMP Annex 22 on AI, Neil is not used in GMP execution. It helps set up configuration, which your team verifies and releases under change control.

7Running Seal alongside LabVantage.

You can start with one workflow and keep LabVantage as the laboratory record. Seal’s LabVantage connection is read-only: it issues GET requests to approved REST web services and passes the JSON to your Seal Scripts. It does not write to the LIMS, and SOAP services need an approved gateway.

Obtain the web-service contract for your installed release and a read-only service account. In Seal, open Settings → Integrations → LabVantage, enter the narrowest approved HTTPS prefix and a test resource, and choose Test and connect. A successful test shows connectivity and readable JSON, not analytical correctness.

The Script should match each value on its full data-item identity. In the connection guide’s fictional example, sample LV-S910 has three glucose values under parameter list GLUCOSE version 3: two replicates in data set 1 and a remeasurement in data set 2. Matching on sample and analyte alone would collapse them. On the full identity they stay three results, and a later correction of 1190 to 1185 mg/L on data set 1, replicate 2 is recorded as a change to that result, not a fourth one. Seal stores the returned status beside each value and does not interpret laboratory approval, so an unfamiliar status stays visible for the LabVantage owner to resolve. The LIMS integration guide covers pagination, corrections and write-back.

8Moving from LabVantage to Seal.

Move one workflow first. LabVantage stays the record for everything else.

1. Choose one stability study, release test or incoming-inspection workflow, ideally one where results must reach batch review or a quality decision.
2. Bring the protocol or method, a redacted specification, the results recorded so far and an instrument export. Start with sample material, or arrange an NDA before sharing confidential records.
3. Neil proposes the workflow from your approved documents, and your team checks the interpretation against the source. Once the scope is agreed and the inputs received, Seal prepares the first working process and its validation pack within 48 hours. Production timing then depends on scope, interfaces, migration and your release requirements.
4. Connect LabVantage read-only for the samples and data items the workflow needs, matched on their full identity.
5. Agree which system owns each record during the transition and what must reconcile. Evaluate historical records, original files, versions and review status before deciding what to migrate; work outside the scope stays in LabVantage.

The LIMS blueprint and the regulatory guide describe the laboratory workflows and the validation approach.