COVID-19 has impacted the pharmaceutical industry, both positively and adversely. While the sales of several pharmaceutical drugs have skyrocketed, the industry like many other is affected by disrupted API imports, supply chain, and distribution network.
Against the backdrop of the second wave of pandemic, pharma industry is actually impacted with severe demand change, which is leading to acute shortage of medicines that are being prescribed to treat COVID 19 and other co-infections. Pharma companies are also experiencing a communication shift and impacted promotion of the products.
While the Government and global focus has shifted towards COVID containment measures, R&D and production have been adversely impacted and the process of approvals for non-COVID management drugs which were in the pipeline has slowed
However, the pandemic has created tremendous need for digitalization and presents the sector with a big opportunity to usher in rapid digitalization, revamping process and systems by adoption of new age technologies in order to build selfreliance, achieve sustainability objectives, and improve operational efficiencies.
The 21st century pharmaceutical industry envisions to be increasingly cost-effective, have higher efficacy, and build-in more transparency and technologies, such as robotic process automation (RPA), data analytics, cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), augmented, virtual, and mixed reality (AR, VR, MR) some of the core branches of digital technology which are going to revolutionize the sector.
There are several ways by which the technologies will help pharma companies transform for the future, some of which are elaborated upon as follows.
Reshaping pharmaceutical marketing and customer experience. Digitalization is transforming pharmaceutical marketing and customer experience at a rapid pace, and yet holds tremendous potential for newer possibilities. However it is worth noting that digital transformation for marketing is aggressively adopted by major players. Hence, it is imperative that organizations devise their digital marketing strategies and integrate them with overall marketing plan. Digitalization is empowering pharma marketing in several ways. AI-powered technologies like chatbots are keeping customers connected and informed round the clock, bringing out personalized communications with various stakeholders and addressing customer concerns.
Armed with a range of mobility solutions, pharma companies can leverage a range of platforms, applications, and technologies to build in process automation, enhance the operational agility, and reduce process cycles. This leads to higher sales prospects and better customer engagement. Furthermore, in times of crisis when the industry is directly impacted, such as during the ongoing pandemic which has led to formation of strong opinions in the global population, social listening technologies can help brands get crucial insights by leveraging smart algorithm powered edge computing models for filtering relevant information from vast volumes of social data, and processing it for further analysis.
Digitalization benefits for commercialization processes. Digitalization plays important role in miniaturization, automation, and parallelization of pharmaceutical processes. However, it is equally important for commercialization and post-commercialization processes, which includes strategic multi-departmental and organizational collaboration to capitalize market access, enhance key stakeholder access, strengthen supply chain and distribution networks, empower salesforce, and customer support. Digitalization will help pharma companies make commercialization activities more flexible and intertwined, resulting in more iterative and agile processes. It has a critical role in streamlining and standardizing processes such as drug dose adjustment and drug impact monitoring. With patient centricity at the core of new-age pharma business, around 51% companies prefer to work with a multi-channel distribution mix for patient and customer retention and to leverage predictive analytics, data mining, or automated forecasting technologies to enhance commercialization.
RPA in pharma. As per Gartner, one of the giants in global research, that RPA usually costs one-third the amount of an offshore employee and one-fifth of an onshore employee. RPA not only reduces the time and cost of entering data drastically, but notches up the accuracy greatly.
Data analytics. Pharmaceutical companies need to validate a number of aspects such as demographic and historical data in order to speed up drug development, clinical trials and efficacy of the drug. While the data may be easy to gather, it is usually unstructured and this is where big data and Data Analytics play a crucial role in sorting it for relevant uses. The sector can utilize big data analytics capabilities for drug discoveries and predictive modeling to tests drugs on a patient’s genetics.
Cloud computing in Pharma. When it comes to Pharma, they produce an ocean of data on a daily basis. This data is usually from R&D and CRM systems. Cloud computing immensely helps the marketers of the pharma industry by allowing access of crucial data from multi-devices, irrespective of their geographic location. It helps in speedy to and fro communication between the various departments, thereby allowing faster clinical trials, R&D, marketing and strengthening supply chain.
Role of AI and extended reality in Pharma. From a host of digital transformation technologies, AR, VR and IOT, AI, robotics and cloud are going to be heavily sought after in 2021. AI powered chat-boxes are becoming a norm now as they yield speedy and automated replies to common queries for customers, patients, health care and even to the employees’ queries. It not only minimizes a human supervisor but also helps in delivering accurate information that too in a fraction of seconds. Extended reality such as AR and VR can help organizations in exercising more control over quality and safety standards, foraying into interactive drug research, creating avenues for active patient participation in healthcare courses, in communicating experiential information, so on and so forth.
Block chain. Pharma companies can employ block chain technologies in addressing supply chain challenges, as the technology provides a more economical solution by reducing third party dependency and enabling exchange of real-time data in the complete procurement process. The technology can be leveraged to manage inventory efficiently and prepare of demand change, maintaining a continuous flow of products. Block chain can be applied for clinical trial management, for secured storage of massive volumes of clinical data, and as a check for counterfeit drugs.
As the world combats the pandemic, for India to retain the title of the pharmacy of the world, the industry needs to embrace digital technologies and transform rapidly to build-in more resiliency against future crisis and uncertainties and serve the global population better.
