The leading financial planning tools for life sciences fall into three groups: accounting systems that record actuals, FP&A platforms that plan runway and programs, and spreadsheets for ad hoc analysis. Abacum is the AI-native business planning platform for scaling enterprises. It brings all your data, business logic and business context into one governed place. This guide compares the tools biotech and life sciences finance teams weigh and explains which group solves which problem. Runway is the plan: 33% of public US and EU biotechs had under 12 months of runway at the end of 2025 (EY, via BioSpace, 2025).
Three groups of tools
Group | Job | Examples |
Accounting and ERP | Record actuals and close the books | Sage's biotech and pharmaceutical accounting suite |
FP&A and business planning platforms | Runway, program cost, scenarios, board reporting | Abacum, Jirav, Anaplan, Pigment, Workday Adaptive Planning, Planful |
Spreadsheets and add-ons | Flexible analysis | Excel, Google Sheets, Cube, Datarails, Vena |
What a life sciences planning tool should do
Rolling cash forecast. Plan week by week and stay board-ready.
Spend by program and phase. Know what each program really costs.
Milestone and financing scenarios. Model trial readouts, delays and the next raise.
A budget that matches the ledger. Build the budget on the same accounts as your actuals.
Explainable outputs. Every figure links back to its source data and assumptions.
Tools compared
Tool | Approach | Confirm in a demo |
Abacum | AI-native business planning platform on one governed layer of data, logic and context | Runway, program cost and scenarios on one model |
Jirav | Dashboards and planning connected to accounting systems, with a life sciences solution page | Program and phase detail |
Anaplan | Multi-dimensional planning for large, complex models; publishes a life sciences industry page focused on supply and value chain | Fit for R&D finance planning |
Pigment | Flexible modeling platform for teams willing to build and maintain their own planning models | Who owns the model after go-live |
Workday Adaptive Planning | Planning connected to the Workday suite | Fit with your systems |
Planful | Planning and reporting with pre-built templates | R&D budget templates |
Cube | Planning that runs on Excel or Google Sheets | Version control |
Pigment is a flexible modeling platform for teams willing to build and maintain their own planning models. Your team or an implementation partner designs it and keeps it running, so confirm who will own the model after go-live.
Where Abacum fits
Runway you re-forecast as often as the science changes. A rolling cash forecast, planned week by week, that stays board-ready.
Know what each program really costs. Spend by program and phase, without a data team.
Scenarios around milestones and financing events, modeled on the live plan.
A budget that matches the GL. Budget versus actuals reconciles without mapping Excel to the ledger by hand.
AI Modeler. Describe the model you need in plain language, or bring the spreadsheet you already built, and get a working model in minutes. Add a program or a new variable by asking, even in models you inherited. The agent proposes, the engine calculates and you approve.
Included, not metered. No credits, no meter, no hidden fees.
We position Abacum on the finance layer. Implementation runs six to nine weeks depending on data complexity, entity count and workflows.
