Going digital is the right step for the pharma industry as it helps to keep everything accountable, track for patent thefts, etc. Pharmaceutical firms are trying to keep pace with the changes that emerging innovations have brought in. Among the technologies that are beginning to change the healthcare industry in the manner they have already changed the media, retail, and banking industries are mobile phones, the cloud, advanced analytics, and the Internet of Things. The disruptive potential is well known to pharma executives and they are experimenting with a wide variety of digital initiatives. However, it is difficult for many to decide which projects to scale up and how, since it is still uncertain what digital success would look like five years from now. This paper attempts to address that. We believe that disruptive trends suggest where emerging technology in the pharmaceutical industry can create the most value and can direct businesses as they establish a digital success strategy. 

Against this context, we believe there are four key areas where digital technologies will drive value for pharmaceutical companies, building on what we see as the key components of digital success: the potential to provide more personalized patient care, to interact more fully with doctors and patients, to use data to drive superior insight and decision-making and to transform business processes to provide real-life care But they still need to build a point of view on the potential of each field to turn their market and innovation models to determine where to focus their efforts. To assist in these decisions, we sketch here an image of how we expect that effective pharmaceutical companies will function in the near future in each region.

A primary value driver for digital technology in every sector is the capacity to personalize experiences with stakeholders. This importance will be realized in pharmaceuticals to a large degree by the use of sensors and digital services to provide personalized treatment around the clock. A large proportion of the pharmaceutical portfolio would produce value from more than just medicines within five to seven years. Many medicines would be part of a digital environment that is continuously tracking the condition of a patient and providing the patient and other stakeholders with input. This ecosystem would help enhance health outcomes by adjusting care to the clinical and lifestyle needs of a patient and allowing health practitioners to remotely track the condition of a patient and adhere to treatment. A plethora of wireless sensors for monitoring the biophysical signals of a patient is already on the market. Combining these with other patient data as they go about their everyday lives, such as nutritional information collected by a smart refrigerator or smart gym weight exercise information, would enable real-time notifications to be given to caregivers and doctors when intervention is required.

the right step for the pharma industry