A number of pressures are bearing down on the life sciences industry, challenging traditional business models: decreasing sales in developed markets due to the patent cliff; a larger, more knowledgeable, and tech-savvy customer base; rising R&D costs and capital constraints; an increasingly complex global supply chain; a data explosion; heightened regulatory and public scrutiny; operational inefficiency; and a demand for better medicines.
The life sciences industry is currently facing the ultimate quandary: develop safer, more effective drugs while keeping R&D costs down and replacing lost revenues due to the patent cliff. Technology will be a critical enabler to address these issues, across the entire pharma product lifecycle.
The pharma industry has a lot of data stored both electronically and on paper. With all the datasets the industry generates, the next step is to use analytics and BI tools to get better insight into the data in hopes of discovering the next big blockbuster. BI and analytics also has an important role in improving the profitability of sales and marketing campaigns as life sciences companies struggle to replace revenue lost from the loss of patent protection for existing blockbusters.
Scientific data continues to increase exponentially with the advancement of data acquisition technologies, particularly as life science companies increase their collaborations and engagements with third parties for research and manufacturing. Hardware and software solutions that enable companies to help derive value from this data and handle the geographic distribution of collaborators is an important challenge within the industry. Big Data frameworks and tools are an emerging technology that could have significant relevance for the life sciences.
The healthcare and life sciences sectors are converging more and more every day. Though no one likes to admit it, both sectors need each other, and often are subject to the same regulations and standards. Increasingly the two verticals are working together, resulting in a need for better data exchange between them. As the two sectors overlap, many healthcare technologies could be leveraged by pharma, and vice versa. Therefore it is important to understand where the overlaps exist and what potential vertical- specific technologies could benefit both sectors.
Track and trace was a hot topic back in 2008, but has cooled down significantly since…until now. Many of the laws for track and trace that were postponed will start to take effect during the next 2–5 years. Unlike before, life sciences companies need to be prepared when the regulations are put in place, especially since different countries have varying mandates for which technology – i.e. serialization, e-pedigree, and RFID – to use.
The life sciences industry deals with some of the most confidential data in existence – patient data from clinical trials. In addition, companies are very sensitive about data security for intellectual property purposes – leakage of IP could result in billions of dollars of lost sales. The life sciences industry has used privacy and security as the main issue for not using commercial IT or technology in general. But are these qualified concerns or are executives just scared of changing?
Bringing a new drug to market costs about $1.3bn, so it is important that companies get a quick return on their investment. This is becoming harder as R&D costs increase but sales continue to drop, particularly due to the patent cliff. IT solutions such as product lifecycle management could help pharma recognize maximum revenue from its existing and new products. Leveraging PLM will become even more important as the industry expands its presence in the emerging markets.
