The life sciences financial planning platforms worth comparing are the ones that keep runway current, show what each program costs and model financing events on the live plan. 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 page gives you a scorecard for every demo and compares Abacum, Jirav, Anaplan, Pigment, Workday Adaptive Planning, Planful, Cube and Vena.
The scorecard
Score each platform from 0 (not shown) to 2 (shown live with your scenario). The maximum is 16.
Criterion | What to see live | Score 0-2 |
|---|---|---|
Weekly runway forecast | A cash forecast planned week by week | |
Program and phase cost | Spend by program and phase | |
Milestone scenarios | A trial readout moved and runway updated | |
Financing scenarios | The next raise added to the live plan | |
Ledger match | Budget and actuals on the same accounts | |
Traceability | A figure traced to source data and assumptions | |
Model ownership | Finance owns the model after go-live | |
Governed AI | Agent actions scoped, logged and approved |
Platform snapshot
Platform | Approach | What to probe |
|---|---|---|
Abacum | AI-native business planning platform on one governed layer of data, logic and context | Weekly runway, program cost and scenarios |
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 | Who builds and maintains the models |
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 current systems |
Planful | Planning and reporting with pre-built templates | R&D budget templates |
Cube | Planning that runs on Excel or Google Sheets | Version control |
Vena | Excel-native planning | Model governance |
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.
Why these criteria
In life sciences, 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). Platforms that update runway as the science changes help finance answer the board the same day a question is asked.
What you will see from Abacum
Runway you re-forecast as often as the science changes, planned week by week and board-ready.
Program cost, by program and phase, without a data team.
Scenarios around milestones and financing events on the live plan.
A budget that matches the GL, so 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. Ask what drives any model, line by line, before the board meeting. The agent proposes, the engine calculates and you approve. Nothing saves until you approve.
Included, not metered. No credits, no meter, no hidden fees.
We position Abacum on the finance layer, above your ledger. Abacum holds a 4.7 rating on G2 (as of October 2026), and more than 85% of our customers use AI in Abacum every month (Abacum, October 2026). Implementation runs six to nine weeks depending on data complexity, entity count and workflows.
