If you are a biotech, medical device, or pharma company evaluating a VDR right now, ShareVault is almost certainly on your shortlist. It should be. They have been building for life sciences for over fifteen years, they have deep relationships with BIO and dozens of other industry associations, and their product reflects that focus.

But ShareVault is not the only credible answer for life sciences anymore – especially if your IT estate is already heavily invested in Microsoft 365.

This is a head-to-head comparison written for life sciences buyers who are tired of generic VDR marketing and want to know what actually changes between the two platforms. I will not pretend Govern 365 wins every category. It does not. There are scenarios where ShareVault is genuinely the better pick. There are also scenarios where putting your clinical, IP, and partnering data into a third-party VDR is the wrong architecture in 2026, and you need to know which is which.

The short answer

ShareVault is a life-sciences-purpose-built VDR with strong domain features like an integrated eCTD viewer, a 21 CFR Part 11 validation package, and inter-document hyperlinking optimized for regulatory submissions. Govern 365 is a Microsoft 365-native VDR that delivers comparable security, audit, and Q&A workflows inside your existing tenant – so PHI, IP, and partnering data never leave your Microsoft 365 environment – at flat-rate pricing starting at $2,400/year. ShareVault wins on life-sciences-specific submission features. Govern 365 wins on data sovereignty, breadth across use cases, and total cost over a multi-year horizon.

How the two platforms are actually built

This is the most important slide of any VDR evaluation, and most buyers skip it.

ShareVault is a SaaS VDR. You upload your documents into ShareVault’s cloud, you give external collaborators (CROs, partners, regulators, acquirers) access to that ShareVault environment, and you operate the deal or trial inside their product. Files live on their infrastructure under their security posture – which is solid – but the security and compliance perimeter is theirs, not yours.

Govern 365 is a Microsoft 365-native VDR. There is no Govern 365 cloud. We provision a deal-grade workspace inside your own Microsoft 365 tenant, using SharePoint Online for storage, Entra ID for identity, and Microsoft Purview for protection, retention, and DLP. Govern 365 adds the missing VDR-grade layer on top: Q&A, dynamic watermarking, granular per-document permissions, document numbering, audit trails, deal close-out, and post-download revocation.

Practically, this means with ShareVault your security team is auditing a vendor. With Govern 365 your security team is auditing controls they already own.

Where ShareVault is genuinely better

I get asked this in evaluations and I will not dodge it. ShareVault has real depth here.

eCTD viewer and inter-document hyperlinking. If your team is preparing IND, NDA, ANDA, BLA, or DMF submissions and you want the VDR itself to render eCTD structure, ShareVault has built that. Govern 365 does not include a native eCTD viewer. We can do everything around the submission package – secure sharing, audit, redaction, version control – but we are not pretending to be a regulatory submission tool.

21 CFR Part 11 validation package. ShareVault ships a packaged validation kit that QA and compliance teams have run before and trust. Govern 365 supports 21 CFR Part 11 controls through Microsoft Purview, audit logs, and access controls in your tenant – and Microsoft 365 itself is widely used in 21 CFR Part 11-regulated environments – but the validation work lands on your QA team and your Microsoft compliance posture rather than coming in a packaged kit.

Pure life sciences positioning. ShareVault sells almost exclusively to life sciences and their support partners. Their templates, their language, and their support staff are calibrated to clinical and regulatory workflows. If your team wants a vendor whose entire product roadmap is biotech-shaped, ShareVault is hard to beat on that dimension.

If your only use case is preparing and sharing regulatory submission packages, and your IT estate is not Microsoft-heavy, ShareVault is a reasonable default and you can probably stop reading here.

For everyone else, keep going.

Where Govern 365 is genuinely better

1. Data never leaves your Microsoft 365 tenant.

This is the biggest architectural difference, and for life sciences it matters more than for almost any other industry.

When you run a partnering deal, a clinical collaboration with a CRO, or an M&A diligence on ShareVault, you are copying PHI, protected IP, and proprietary research data out of your environment and into a vendor cloud. That vendor cloud is compliant – ShareVault is HIPAA, GDPR, ISO 27001, SOC 2, and 21 CFR Part 11 compliant – but it is still a copy of your most sensitive data in someone else’s perimeter. When the deal closes, you are paying ShareVault to keep hosting it.

With Govern 365, the deal data sits inside SharePoint Online in your tenant. Your existing sensitivity labels, DLP policies, retention policies, and conditional access rules apply automatically. Your security operations center already monitors the audit telemetry. No new vendor custodian. No data exfiltration to a third party. When the deal closes, the room moves to archived state inside your tenant – no archive fees, no “storage rent.”

2. Pricing that does not punish document volume.

ShareVault’s pricing is generally subscription-based, typically in the $5,000 to $25,000 per year range per active room or per-user. That is competitive against legacy per-page providers but still scales painfully when you run multiple partnering rooms, board work, and M&A diligence simultaneously.

Govern 365 starts at $2,400 per year with predictable, flat-rate VDR pricing, unlimited users, and unlimited storage per room. For a biotech that runs four to eight concurrent partnering rooms plus board, audit, and the occasional M&A diligence, the multi-year cost difference is significant. The VDR Switch Calculator lets you model your own numbers.

3. One governance backbone for every sensitive workflow, not just deals.

This is where life sciences orgs underestimate the cost of using a deal-specialist VDR.

A typical mid-stage biotech is running, simultaneously:

• Clinical collaboration with one or more CROs
• Pre-clinical IP exchange with academic partners
• Licensing partnering rooms
• Board-level governance documents
• Investor reporting and capital raise diligence
• HR-sensitive material
• Sometimes ITAR-controlled or export-restricted engineering data

If you use a specialist VDR for each, you end up with three or four different governance models, three or four different identity systems, and a security team that cannot get a single pane of glass on where your sensitive data lives. Govern 365 runs all of it in one tenant under one governance model.

4. Setup time and partner onboarding.

A ShareVault data room takes hours to a couple of days to provision and validate, depending on the configuration. A Govern 365 room is typically operational within about an hour because it provisions inside infrastructure you already own. Your external collaborators – CROs, partners, acquirers – can authenticate through Entra ID guest access, which most enterprise partners already have, rather than creating yet another vendor account.

5. Audit lands where your security team already looks.

Every Govern 365 audit event flows into Microsoft Purview – the same place your SOC is already monitoring your other M365 audit signal. You get one investigation workflow, not two.

Side-by-side: the comparison that matters

Life sciences scenarios: which one fits

You are preparing an IND, NDA, or BLA submission and want the VDR to render eCTD structure. → ShareVault. The eCTD viewer is a real product feature and Govern 365 does not match it.

You are running a partnering or licensing deal and want fast, secure document exchange with another biotech or pharma. → Either works. Govern 365 wins on cost and on keeping IP in your tenant. ShareVault wins if the counterparty already runs on ShareVault and wants no new login.

You are running M&A diligence as the sell-side biotech. → Either works for the workflow. The honest tiebreaker is buyer preference – some acquirers prefer the brand-name VDR they have used before. See Datasite vs Govern 365 on M&A workflows for the broader M&A due diligence in life sciences framing. For early-stage and mid-market biotechs especially, Govern 365’s flat-rate model often saves 60-80% over a multi-month diligence.

You are running a CRO collaboration with PHI involved. → Govern 365 is the cleaner architecture. PHI never leaves your tenant. Your existing HIPAA controls apply automatically.

You are running multiple concurrent sensitive workflows – board, partnering, IP, audit – and tired of managing three VDR vendors. → Govern 365. One platform, one governance model, one bill.

You are a CRO running multiple sponsor relationships and the sponsors expect the regulatory-grade VDR they have used for fifteen years. → ShareVault. The brand familiarity matters in your business.

What about SharePoint as a virtual data room without Govern 365?

This comes up. The honest answer is that SharePoint Online out of the box is missing several VDR-grade controls: dynamic watermarking, per-room Q&A workflow, document numbering for regulatory submissions, post-download revocation, deal close-out and archival, and selective file export. You can stitch some of it together with custom development and Power Automate, but you are building a VDR. Govern 365 is the packaged version of that build, validated by Microsoft (MISA) and shipped as a product.

Govern 365 is a strong, Microsoft 365 native governance and secure collaboration platform. Overall, it comes close to becoming a contender in the governance and secure collaboration market.

Christopher Dixon
Senior IT Director

The deciding question

Most VDR comparisons fail because they list features. The real question is architectural: do you want your most sensitive life sciences data to live inside your Microsoft 365 perimeter, or inside a vendor’s perimeter?

If the answer is “vendor perimeter, and the vendor needs deep life sciences specialization,” ShareVault is the right call.

If the answer is “our own perimeter, with one governance model for every sensitive collaboration we do,” Govern 365 is the right call.

If you are not sure, the Life Sciences VDR pillar lays out the full evaluation framework. Or run your numbers through the VDR Switch Calculator to see what the architectural choice actually costs over three years.

Frequently Asked Questions