The digital transformation has already begun. Businesses in all industries are using technology to change and improve how they operate and serve their customers. Pharmaceutical industry is no exception. The outbreak of the pandemic has pushed digitization to the forefront as businesses seek new ways to operate.
The pharmaceutical industry’s digital transformation will enable pharmaceutical companies to produce counterfeit-proof medications, ensuring the medicine’s authenticity. Pharmaceutical companies can use cloud-based information exchange to comply with regulations and interact with suppliers and wholesalers, as well as potentially use digitization to meet increased market demand.
Patients now have greater access than ever before to healthcare information and pharmaceutical companies. Then which recent digital trends have truly shaped the industry, and will these developments continue?
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Digital Offerings
The Corona crisis demonstrated the potential importance of digital health in the future. There are already numerous options available, particularly in the areas of preventive health and mental health.
So far, startups are dividing the young market among themselves, despite the fact that pharmaceutical companies have many valuable resources that they can use to design digital health offerings.
Connected Hybrid Experiences
Patients will continue to interact with healthcare professionals and pharmaceutical companies outside of the Internet as a result of digital transformation. However, there is room for physical and digital experiences to be linked in order to provide more comprehensive, multifaceted healthcare solutions.
Telemedicine, for example, has grown in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Another option is to use digital technologies such as wearables and mobile devices to monitor one’s health.
Even drug development can benefit from the use of digital technologies; according to a 2019 study, more than 80% of patients were willing to participate in a mobile digital clinical trial, compared to just over 50% willing to participate in a traditional trial.
AI in Drug Discovery
For the better part of a decade, artificial intelligence has been making inroads into drug discovery. In small-molecule drug discovery, AI can add value in four ways: access to new biology, improved or novel chemistry, higher success rates, and faster and cheaper discovery processes.
Many challenges and constraints in traditional R&D can also be addressed by the technology. Each application adds new insights to drug discovery teams and, in some cases, can completely reimagine long-standing workflows. Understanding and differentiating between use cases is critical because these technologies are applicable to a wide range of discovery contexts and biological targets.
Precision Medicine
Precision medicine and big data go hand in hand. Medical professionals there use a combination of genomic data, medical records, and lab tests to develop individualized treatment plans.
Algorithms aid in the capture of unique genomics makeup along this continuum. The latter aids in the discovery of precision medicine. This, for example, enabled researchers to identify specific genetic biomarkers linked to severe Covid-19.
Smart algorithms can effectively sift through unstructured genomic data in general. This, in turn, can assist pharmaceutical companies in detecting patterns and developing more effective and personalized medications for their patients. Furthermore, complex genome data analytics informs new decision tools for more precise treatments.
Customer Experience
Digitalization is causing value chains to split across all industries. Customers today are becoming more demanding, expecting constant digital accessibility and personalized service across all channels – digital and analog. The advantage of young, digitally savvy businesses is frequently the creation of a customer experience that perceives and considers the modern customers changing needs.
Process automation technologies are increasingly being used, making scalability and exceptional service quality compatible in customer care. Robotic Process Automation, for example, can be used to automate the initial contact in customer service. The customer service department receives filtered inquiries while also being relieved of the burden of responding to standard inquiries.
In Conclusion..
To summarize, it should now be clear that digital transformation has the potential to reshape the pharmaceutical industry for years to come. The pharma industry’s digital moment has arrived, thanks to COVID-19, an unprecedented accelerator. New, tech-savvy, and sometimes distrustful audiences necessitate new marketing strategies.
Offerings in digital health continue to grow, fueled by technologies such as Big Data and predictive analytics. Thus, from drug discovery and manufacturing to mobile clinical trials and Blockchain-powered supply chains, the technologies that digital transformations imply provide ample opportunities for innovation.