Andrew Dunbar outlines five digital technologies that can help pharma function to the best of its abilities over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
COVID-19 continues to have a devastating impact on families, societies and economies. At the epicentre of the crisis, over-stretched healthcare organisations are battling to save lives and control infection rates, while also protecting their frontline staff.
This report addresses the key factors shaping pharmaceutical formulation, including regulation, QC and analysis.
Access the full report now to discover the techniques, tools and innovations that are transforming pharmaceutical formulation, and learn how to position your organisation for long-term success.
What you’ll discover:
Key trends shaping the pharmaceutical formulation sector
Innovations leading progress in pharmaceutical formulation and how senior professionals can harness their benefits
Considerations and best practices when utilising QbD during formulation of oral solid dosage forms
Against this backdrop, intense scrutiny has been paid to the pharma industry’s ongoing efforts to develop a silver bullet vaccine and repurpose existing drugs to counteract the impact of the virus. So important is this work that it regularly makes front page news and has a tangible daily impact on stock markets.
Less prominent is the seismic impact that COVID-19 is having on the regular day-to-day operations of the pharma industry. With so much time and resources being allocated to the pandemic, every aspect of the pharma value chain from manufacturing to sales and marketing is having to adapt. The reality is that working practices across the industry may never be the same again.
Just a few months into this ‘new normal’, it is already clear that digital tech will have a pivotal role to play in ensuring that the pharma industry continues to function to the best of its abilities, providing both healthcare practitioners (HCPs) and patients with the vital support they need. Here are five digital technologies that pharma companies will need to embrace to remain relevant.
Virtualised HCP marketing
With the cancellation of industry events and the reorganisation of frontline healthcare to tackle COVID-19, pharma companies have found it increasingly difficult to secure face to face sales and marketing meetings with HCP decision-makers.1 The result is increasing distance between personal relationships and a need to rely more heavily on digital channels. In functional terms, this means an increased reliance on websites and apps, email and video conferencing – but more important is the need for a shift in the pharma mindset.2 Some observers talk about pharma companies becoming media companies; others about pharma developing service industry skills. What these ideas encapsulate is the need to drive engagement with the pharma buyer, through relevant personalised content and value-based approaches, as well as a tailored and responsive after-sale service. McKinsey anticipates3 a shift away from traditional push digital channels towards more engaging platforms such as “virtual peer-to-peer sessions, medical webinars on the latest data and multi-customer video conferences on treatment protocols.” It is clear that this is not a temporary stopgap solution but an evolution in how business is being done.
Remote patient support
COVID-19 has led to an increase in remote prescribing,4 as HCPs seek to adhere to social distancing guidelines while also providing timely and responsive care. There are rigorous guidelines attached to remote prescribing, however lack of face-to-face consultation with an HCP still raises the possibility that patients may not have asked all the necessary questions about their medication or absorbed all the relevant instructions for use. While there are clearly tough regulatory limits on pharma communications with consumers, there is still scope for the industry to play an enhanced role by going ‘beyond the pill’ – providing support and education to end users via digital channels. Pharma support for remote prescribing is just one dimension of a more general point: pharma needs to embrace an omnichannel approach to their relationships with the users of their products. As healthcare shifts more towards a self-service model, remote monitoring, instructional/advisory content and facilitation of online patient communities are all ways pharma can engage with patients, supporting overstretched HCPs in the process. Embracing tools like data visualisation and deeper content personalisation will allow pharma companies to communicate insights or share results with patients more intuitively.
Data-driven decision-making
HCPs are working at full throttle to tackle the COVID-19 crisis, while patients are ‘doing their bit’ by not contacting doctors with minor complaints. An unhappy consequence is that more and more non-COVID-19 conditions are going under the radar.5 As the impact of COVID-19 on other conditions/illnesses becomes clearer, the healthcare system as a whole will become more reliant than ever on data and artificial intelligence (AI) to identify emerging patterns and respond accordingly. Pharma is not excluded from this trend. Firms need to recruit data science talent to ensure they are equipped to deal with the complex consumption patterns certain to emerge in the post-COVID-19 landscape. With the increased adoption of telehealth and digitally-powered clinical decision support (CDS), pharma needs to respond with agile supply chains.6 As manufacturers, a core responsibility for pharma firms will be to ensure that the healthcare ecosystem is never confronted with a shortage of drugs – a challenge that can be tackled with increased reliance on the predictive capabilities of data and AI to map out changing patterns of usage and demand. As distributors, pharma will need to prepare for a growth in the number of anxious end users who want medication shipped directly to their door and an ever-improving healthcare service that aims to facilitate that.
Tech-powered trials
Pharma has woken up to the potential of the cloud in the last couple of years”
Social distancing, lockdowns, restrictions on movement and a general reluctance to go outdoors are clearly issues for clinical trials.7 In fact, during a recent pharmaphorum webinar,8 the impact of COVID-19 on clinical trials was cited as the second biggest concern for the sector (behind sales and marketing engagement). This is supported by reports from the frontline in fields such as oncology.9 On the one hand, COVID-19 makes it harder to recruit participants and host them at labs/facilities. On the other, it makes monitoring their physical well-being more difficult if the trial is spread over several weeks or months (and they are based at home). Again, tech can provide a partial answer. In the oncology study referred to above, digital strategies considered for clinical trial assessment included telemedicine, remote electronic medical record access and virtual monitoring. This builds on work by firms such as Novartis.10
Cloud-enabled and start-up inspired collaboration
Pharma has woken up to the potential of the cloud in the last couple of years, especially in the field of drug development. Put simply, the cloud facilitates closer collaboration11 between organisations by making it easier to share data. In turn, this can speed up the process of finding new treatments. Unsurprisingly, this cross-fertilisation of ideas has become a top priority in the search for a COVID-19 vaccine. In parallel, the COVID-19 crisis has drawn a powerful response from dynamic tech start-ups.12 Digital health entrepreneurs have the ability to respond rapidly to changes in the market, with solutions ranging from apps to chatbots. Collaboration with cutting edge firms is a way for pharma to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to servicing HCPs and patients.
Like many legacy industries, pharma has not embraced the potential of digital transformation as quickly as it might have done, but now it has an opportunity to change that. The sector is enjoying a reputational boost13 thanks to its proactive response14 to the COVID-19 pandemic and that has made the sector a more desirable career destination for entrepreneurial tech talent.
New research by Novartis15 found that tech professionals in the US, UK, Germany, China and India are increasingly open to the prospect of working in healthcare and pharma – more so than traditional tech targets like finance and telecoms. The key reasons, according to Novartis, are the opportunity to innovate through tech, a desire to improve quality of care and make systems more efficient and an ambition to solve real-world problems.
Attracting new tech talent is not a straightforward process. However, when combined with the capabilities of digital agencies, tech start-ups and digital transformation experts, pharma is better-placed than ever to devise systems, processes and tools that will help HCPs deliver customer-centric, self-service, data-driven, COVID-19 secure solutions to patients.
About the author
Andrew Dunbar is General Manager and Vice President EMEA of Appnovation. Andrew has over 20 years’ of experience leading large scale business transformation in both network and start-up environments. He is passionate about solving real world business problems for clients and helping brands to use digital to realise strategic objectives.
Thanks Andrew Dunbar for sharing such valuable five digital technologies that can help pharma function to the best of its abilities over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This website uses cookies to enable, optimise and analyse site operations, as well as to provide personalised content and allow you to connect to social media. By clicking "I agree" you consent to the use of cookies for non-essential functions and the related processing of personal data. You can adjust your cookie and associated data processing preferences at any time via our "Cookie Settings". Please view our Cookie Policy to learn more about the use of cookies on our website.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorised as ”Necessary” are stored on your browser as they are as essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. For our other types of cookies “Advertising & Targeting”, “Analytics” and “Performance”, these help us analyse and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these different types of cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. You can adjust the available sliders to ‘Enabled’ or ‘Disabled’, then click ‘Save and Accept’. View our Cookie Policy page.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Cookie
Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertising-targeting
The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Advertising & Targeting".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent WordPress Plugin. The cookie is used to remember the user consent for the cookies under the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent WordPress Plugin. The cookie is used to remember the user consent for the cookies under the category "Performance".
PHPSESSID
This cookie is native to PHP applications. The cookie is used to store and identify a users' unique session ID for the purpose of managing user session on the website. The cookie is a session cookies and is deleted when all the browser windows are closed.
viewed_cookie_policy
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
zmember_logged
This session cookie is served by our membership/subscription system and controls whether you are able to see content which is only available to logged in users.
Performance cookies are includes cookies that deliver enhanced functionalities of the website, such as caching. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Cookie
Description
cf_ob_info
This cookie is set by Cloudflare content delivery network and, in conjunction with the cookie 'cf_use_ob', is used to determine whether it should continue serving “Always Online” until the cookie expires.
cf_use_ob
This cookie is set by Cloudflare content delivery network and is used to determine whether it should continue serving “Always Online” until the cookie expires.
free_subscription_only
This session cookie is served by our membership/subscription system and controls which types of content you are able to access.
ls_smartpush
This cookie is set by Litespeed Server and allows the server to store settings to help improve performance of the site.
one_signal_sdk_db
This cookie is set by OneSignal push notifications and is used for storing user preferences in connection with their notification permission status.
YSC
This cookie is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos.
Analytics cookies collect information about your use of the content, and in combination with previously collected information, are used to measure, understand, and report on your usage of this website.
Cookie
Description
bcookie
This cookie is set by LinkedIn. The purpose of the cookie is to enable LinkedIn functionalities on the page.
GPS
This cookie is set by YouTube and registers a unique ID for tracking users based on their geographical location
lang
This cookie is set by LinkedIn and is used to store the language preferences of a user to serve up content in that stored language the next time user visit the website.
lidc
This cookie is set by LinkedIn and used for routing.
lissc
This cookie is set by LinkedIn share Buttons and ad tags.
vuid
We embed videos from our official Vimeo channel. When you press play, Vimeo will drop third party cookies to enable the video to play and to see how long a viewer has watched the video. This cookie does not track individuals.
wow.anonymousId
This cookie is set by Spotler and tracks an anonymous visitor ID.
wow.schedule
This cookie is set by Spotler and enables it to track the Load Balance Session Queue.
wow.session
This cookie is set by Spotler to track the Internet Information Services (IIS) session state.
wow.utmvalues
This cookie is set by Spotler and stores the UTM values for the session. UTM values are specific text strings that are appended to URLs that allow Communigator to track the URLs and the UTM values when they get clicked on.
_ga
This cookie is set by Google Analytics and is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. It stores information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors.
_gat
This cookies is set by Google Universal Analytics to throttle the request rate to limit the collection of data on high traffic sites.
_gid
This cookie is set by Google Analytics and is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the website is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages visited in an anonymous form.
Advertising and targeting cookies help us provide our visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns.
Cookie
Description
advanced_ads_browser_width
This cookie is set by Advanced Ads and measures the browser width.
advanced_ads_page_impressions
This cookie is set by Advanced Ads and measures the number of previous page impressions.
advanced_ads_pro_server_info
This cookie is set by Advanced Ads and sets geo-location, user role and user capabilities. It is used by cache busting in Advanced Ads Pro when the appropriate visitor conditions are used.
advanced_ads_pro_visitor_referrer
This cookie is set by Advanced Ads and sets the referrer URL.
bscookie
This cookie is a browser ID cookie set by LinkedIn share Buttons and ad tags.
IDE
This cookie is set by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile.
li_sugr
This cookie is set by LinkedIn and is used for tracking.
UserMatchHistory
This cookie is set by Linkedin and is used to track visitors on multiple websites, in order to present relevant advertisement based on the visitor's preferences.
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE
This cookie is set by YouTube. Used to track the information of the embedded YouTube videos on a website.
Thanks Andrew Dunbar for sharing such valuable five digital technologies that can help pharma function to the best of its abilities over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.