Lifesciences
Technology
IT has been a prime enabler of many of the changes seen in Lifesciences: expanded data sets, flexible access to cloud computing capacity (projected to account for 46% of IT spending in 2021), and huge shifts to remote working, virtual engagement, and online collaboration. In a recent Bain survey, only 1% of executives said their digital investments had delivered on their expectations.
Digital transformations will require a wide range of technologies:
Business Applications
Complex pharmaceutical companies have a high number of stand-alone systems that require inefficient manual effort and increase the number of transactions and data inconsistencies. At one major pharmaceutical company, 25% of its systems have less than 50 users.
Lifesciences firms will need to shift from standalone applications to creating end-to-end digital platforms that support the entire workflow from start to end. They will need partners to help them re-platform applications or to create an API environment to surround legacy applications to allow modern digital platforms to be introduced.
Data, Analytics, AI & Automation
The volume of health care data produced is growing exponentially. For example, the amount of genomics data generated in recent decades has increased from approximately ten megabytes per year in the mid-1980s to over 20 petabytes from 2015–19, an increase of over nine orders of magnitude.
Lifesciences companies can collect hundreds of millions of records with near–real time data (Real World Evidence (RWE)). McKinsey estimates that over the next three to five years, an average top-20 pharma company could unlock more than $300 million a year by adopting advanced RWE analytics across its value chain.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly the only feasible technology to extract signals from these expanded data sources, generating novel insights from unstructured data such as notes in patient electronic medical records or from disparate fields of scientific study, and in feature detection in continuous patient monitoring data. This exponential increase in data volume requires more robust data governance models to ensure the cross-functional decisions and validity of data used in analysis. It also requires a continuous evolution of data analytic capabilities streamlined across functions to keep up with the explosion of data types.
AI has been making inroads in drug discovery for a good part of the last decade. Recent analysis shows that biotech companies using an AI-first approach have more than 150 small-molecule drugs in discovery and more than 15 already in clinical trials. This AI-fueled pipeline has been expanding at an annual rate of almost 40%.
AI has the potential to revolutionize diagnoses, treatment planning, patient monitoring, drug discovery, clinical trials and continuous manufacturing. According to MarketsandMarkets, the market for AI in the industry is expected to increase from $198.3 million in 2018 to $3.88 billion in 2025, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 52.9%.
Compute & Cloud
Lifesciences companies have discovered the importance of cloud services in enabling analytics, reducing innovation cycles, and standardising processes across global operations. Cloud platforms enable analytics use cases to be quickly scaled and deployed along the entire value chain.
In recent company reports and press releases, 16 of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies refer to cloud technology. The applications they mention span the value chain, with research and early development, market access, commercial, and medical applications dominating mentions.
Given the level of security needed it is likely that a hybrid cloud environment will be needed. Hyperscale cloud providers Lifesciences firms will need skills (or partners) to operate an environment that not only manages the cloud infrastructure but allows the ease of moving workloads to and from the cloud.
Networking & Communications
With a significant remotely located workforce, whether in offices, operational sites, at home or mobile delivering a consistent and reliable experience across the mobile and broadband worlds as well as across the different device ecosystems (Mac/ iOS, Google/Android, Microsoft) is essential to effective working. This includes managing end user devices.
Digital Workplace
The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted pharma companies to rethink their organizational strategies.
The Work From Home index, a survey carried out by PwC Research, found that 46% of workers can work from home. More than 80 percent think it likely or very likely that companies will fully embrace agile ways of working,
Organisations must now provide a digitally enabled, flexible and collaborative working experience to attract and retain staff. They must also move beyond the fast reactions required to achieve a lockdown.
A modern collaborative digital workplace is critical to a remotely located workforce. It ranges from access to HR applications and core business applications to e-mail, instant messaging and enterprise social media tools and virtual meeting tools.
Internet of Things & Industry 4.0
Smart factories seamlessly connect disparate manufacturing systems and processes for enhanced visibility into shop floor operations, as machine intelligence monitors processes and provides actionable insights for floor staff to reduce errors, deviations, and production losses. In 2021, GlaxoSmithKline successfully piloted the creation of a digital twin to fine-tune its manufacturing process for vaccine adjuvants.
IoT solutions are used to track and trace product shipments in real time and to plugd gaps in supply-chain visibility. IoT is also important in Medical Devices which Lifesciences companies can use to complement their treatments.
Given the authenticity and integrity of data stored in blockchain networks, the technology has the potential to support secure data-sharing, connectivity, and auditability for processes across the biopharma value chain. Some companies are already piloting blockchain networks in parallel with serialisation to track products and prevent counterfeiting.
Security, Compliance & Data Privacy
As connectivity expands, cyber risk increases. In 2020, manufacturing moved up the list of most targeted industries from 8th to 2nd—a rise of 300% globally, according to the 2021 Global Threat Intelligence Report. Over the year, attacks against manufacturing increased from 7% to 22%; health care increased from 7% to 17%.
Lifesciences firms are an attractive target as they hold sensitive commercial information and may also be targeted by groups with a political or ideological agenda. Security, especially with data breaches, malware and ransomware, is high priority issue. Remote working, cloud and all open up new attack surfaces and potential for security breaches.
In 2017, Merck reported that a cyberattack that occurred in June 2017 unfavourably affected revenue in the fourth quarter of 2017 by $125 million and for 2017 and 2018 by $260 million and $150 million, respectively. As such events become more commonplace, McKinsey Global Institute estimates that the pharma industry will lose an average of 24% of one year’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization every ten years.
IT Governance & Management
In a period of intense digital transformation the effective management of Dev/Ops is crucial in delivering the desired change and ensuring operational resilience.
Effective management of IT assets and licences over their lifecycle is essential to good cost management.