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Pharma Sales Post Covid-19 Lockdown

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Disruptions from Covid-19 pandemic have caused limited access to physicians for Pfizer’s marketing and sales teams have had. If ‘the novel Coronavirus pandemic hamstringing the company’s sales team,’ there could be a slowdown in new prescriptions and a sales hit in the second quarter, said the global CEO of Pfizer, on April 28, 2020. He further said, ‘new prescriptions for a range of its products will decline as patients continue avoiding in-office physician visits.’

Pfizer is not only the company facing such situation. In fact, the entire pharma industry is encountering a tough headwind for the same reason. However, being very specific on the quantum of sales hit – on the same day, ‘Merck, with a heavy presence in physician-administered drugs’, predicted an adverse impact of US$ 2.1Billion on sales, from COVID-19.

Physical absence of, virtually the entire pharma field force in the field for strict compliance of social distancing during the lockdown period, causing a crippling effect on the new prescription demand generation activity. This possibility was hardly imagined by anyone in the industry. Which is why, the current situation is too challenging for pharma sales and marketing leadership teams to respond, with a sustainable strategic approach. Moreover, most of them don’t yet seem to be accustomed with charting any pivotal demand generation activity, sans field force.

Further, the meaning of ‘Patient-Centricity’ in the post lockdown period – still maintaining ‘social distancing’ norms, is expected to undergo considerable changes. This may include development of newer health care practices for many customers, which they started practicing during the lockdown period. However, no one can exactly predict, as on date, whether such changes will continue for a long term, as we move on. In this article, I shall deliberate on a likely scenario in the pharma selling space post Covid-19 outbreak, based on research studies. This is primarily because Covid-19 could be with us for a long time.

Covid-19 could be with us for a long time:

As reported, on the day 35 into the world’s largest lockdown, India, reportedly, was failing to see an easing of new cases similar to what hot spots such as Spain and Italy have recently experienced with more intensive Covid-19 outbreaks. Even today, the scale and duration of the pandemic are very uncertain, so will be the necessity of maintaining social or physical distancing guidelines. This possibility gets vindicated by what the Director General of the World Organization said on April 22, 2020: ‘Make no mistake: we have a long way to go. This virus will be with us for a long time.’ Thus, shutdowns in different forms, is expected to continue for some time in India.

‘Covid-19 pandemic to last for minimum two years’ with its consequent fallout also on the pharma industry:I

Interestingly, ‘India began its containment measures on March 25, when its outbreak showed only 564 cases.’ As on May 03, 2020, the recorded Coronavirus cases in India have sharply climbed to 39,980 and 1,323 deaths. India is now expected to prepare exiting the 54-day lockdown in phases from May 17, 2020, with a few limited relaxations even before that date. However, as the BBC news of April 9, 2020 also points out, the country may not afford to lift the lockdown totally – everywhere, for everyone and for all the time, anytime soon, for obvious reasons.

The April 30, 2020 report from the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, confirms this situation. It says: ‘The Coronavirus pandemic is likely to last as long as two years and won’t be controlled until about two-thirds of the world’s population is immune.’ This is because of the ability to spread from asymptomatic people, which is harder to control than influenza, the cause of most pandemics in recent history. Thus, the Coronavirus pandemic is likely to continue in waves that could last beyond 2022, the authors said.

Many countries around the world are already facing similar issues for exiting Covid-19 lockdown. It has been observed that easing the lockdown is a tricky policy choice, as it triggers a fresh wave of infection, as recently happened in advanced countries, such as, Singapore and several other nations.

It is, therefore, clear now that shutdowns need to continue in different forms in India as different waves of Covid-19 infections strike, in tandem with scaling up of requisite testing and health infrastructure to manage those outbreaks, effectively.  Consequently, its impact on the pharma industry is likely to continue with its unforeseen fallout, prompting the same old question, yet again, why the oldest commercial model remains pivotal in the pharma industry.

The oldest commercial model remains pivotal in the pharma industry:

About a couple of years ago from now, an interesting article of IQVIA, titled, ‘Channel Preference Versus Promotional Reality,’ highlighted an important fact. It said, one of the oldest commercial models of using medical or sales representatives to generate product demand through personal communication with each doctor, and other key stakeholders, is still practiced in the pharma industry, both as a primary medium and also to communicate the message.

The same model continues in the pharma industry, regardless of several fundamental challenges in the business environment. Curiously, erosion of similar models in many other industries, such as financial and other services, in favor of various highly effective contemporary platforms, is clearly visible. Some of these fundamental challenges involve an increasing number of both, the healthcare professionals and also patients they treat, moving online.

This has been happening since some time – long before Covid-19 outbreak. Today, many patients want contemporary information on the disease-treatment process, available alternatives and the cost involved with each. These patients also want to communicate with their peers on the disease for the same reasons, before they take a final decision on what exactly they would like to follow. A similar trend is visible, at a much larger scale, with medical professionals, including top drug prescribers.

Healthcare customers’ increasing digital preference was captured well before the Covid-19 outbreak:

The rise of digital communication as a global phenomenon, was deliberated in the June 04, 2019 ‘Whitepaper’ of IQVIA, titled ‘The Power of Remote Personal Interactions.’ It captured an increasing digital preference of healthcare customers much before Covid-19 outbreak. For example, according to IQVIA Channel Dynamics data1, there was a 26 percent decline in total contact minutes for face-to-face detailing in Europe, since 2011.

Another 2018 IQVIA survey reported, 65 percent to 85 percent of representatives were saying that access to physicians is becoming harder. The paper also indicated that the rise of digital and multichannel communication with healthcare professionals has been far from uniform across countries, with Japan leading the world, followed by the United States.

India is an emerging power in the digital space, today. Thus, I reckon, it has immense opportunity to leverage digital platforms in healthcare, especially to effectively address the current void in the demand generation activity of drug companies. The key question that needs to be answered: Are pharma customers developing new habits during, at least, the 54-day national lockdown period?

‘It takes about 18 days to 254 days for people to form a new habit’:

According to a study, titled ‘How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world,’ published on July 16, 2009, in the European Journal of Social Psychology, it takes anywhere from 18 days to 254 days for people to form a new habit. Thus, changing preferences of many healthcare consumers, including doctors and patients, at least, in the 40-day period of national lockdown in India, may trigger a change in habits of many patients. This change may further evolve over a period a time.

Such changes would demand a new and comprehensive ‘Patient-Centric’ approach from pharma players, as well, having a clear insight on the dynamics of the changes. Gaining data-based insight on the same, pharma sales and marketing leadership would need to develop a grand strategy to deliver ‘patient-group’ specific desired outcomes. One of these approaches could be, triggering non-personal sales promotion on digital platforms.

Triggering non-personal sales promotion on digital platforms:

Dealing with future uncertainty calls for non-conventional and innovative strategies, such as, generating brand prescription effectively even without personal promotion. Thus, to tide over the current crisis, triggering non-personal sales promotion on digital platforms, appears to be the name of the game. In a 2018 IQVIA survey, looking at the multi-channel landscape in life sciences, 54 percent of the 250 respondents from pharma and biotech were found already using virtual interactions, such as e-Detailing, or were planning to assess the approach.

What is required now is to rejuvenate the initiative, with a sense of great urgency. Covid-19 pandemic has the possibility and potential to expedite a strong pull in this direction, responding to a new ‘customer-centric’ approach, as prompted by the evolving scenario, triggered during the 54-day long stringent lockdown period. This is especially considering the fact that it takes about 18 days to 254 days for people to form a new habit.

Further, as Bloomberg reported on May 02, 2020, “coming up with a vaccine to halt Covid-19, in a matter of months isn’t the only colossal challenge. The next big test: getting billions of doses to every corner of the world at a time when countries increasingly are putting their own interests first,” which may take quite time.

Conclusion:

One thing for sure, the sudden outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic has made all ongoing and robust strategic business plans somewhat topsy-turvy. Most pharma companies were compelled to floor the break-pedal of several business operations, including prescription demand generation activity of field sales forces, during the lockdown period.

At this time, many healthcare consumers, including patients, tried various remote access digital platforms to continue with their treatment or for a new treatment of common ailments, besides procurement of medicines. Two primary drivers, in combination with each other, prompted those individuals to try out the digital mode. One, of course, the stringent lockdown norms, and the other being the fear of contracting Covid-19 infection, if the prescribed personal distancing standards are breached – just in case.

This position may lead to two possibilities – one, involving the patients and the doctors and the other, involving field staff/doctors/hospitals/retailers, etc. During, at least, the 54-day long lockdown period, if not even beyond May 17, 2020 – those patients may develop a sense of convenience with the digital platforms. This may lead to a new habit forming, which has the potential to create a snowballing effect on others – through word-of-mouth communication. The process may signal a shift on what ‘Patient-Centricity’ currently means to the pharma players.

The other one, I reckon, involves with the continuation of strict social or physical distancing norms for an indefinite period. This could seriously limit field-staff movement and meeting with the doctors, hospitals/retailers, besides many others, and more importantly would lead to a significant escalation of cost per call. The question, therefore, is: Will pharma selling remain as before, post Covid-19 lockdown? Most probably not. If so, a new task is cut out, especially for the Indian pharma leadership team, to chart a new ‘Patient-Centric’ digital pathway, in pursuit of sustainable business excellence.

By: Tapan J. Ray   

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.

Post Covid-19 Lockdown: Is Pharma Industry Ready?

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It’s over a month now since national lockdown in India came into force to win the war against Covid-19. Many promises and apprehensions about whether or not Covid-19 will keep ravaging human life, continue surfacing. As it appears today, whatever best happens post May 03, 2020, the Coronavirus outbreak is going to change the way we live and the businesses used to operate, in many respects, till an effective vaccine comes, at the very least. This change also includes the health care, in general, and the pharmaceutical industry, in particular.

It is obvious now that Covid-19 will stalk the planet for a long time to come. On April 22, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) also reiterated: ‘Make no mistake, Coronavirus will be with us for a long time.’ This vindicates many apprehensions against an early promise of winning the Covid19 war decisively in 21-days or even by May 03, 2020, or whenever the national lockdown is phased-out in a calibrated manner. Further, W.H.O has also cautioned: “Most countries are still in the early stages of their epidemics. And some that were affected early in the pandemic are now starting to see a resurgence in cases.”

As on April 26, 2020, the recorded Coronavirus cases in India has sharply climbed to 26,496 and 825 deaths, with the Union Health Ministry saying on April 23, 2020: ‘Doubling rate of Covid-19 cases in country is now 10 days.’ Whereas, on the same day, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) also said, ‘for now, it is very difficult to tell when a peak state of COVID-19 pandemic in the country will arrive.’

The life-changing disruptions that Covid19 has caused, and may continue to cause in the near future, has apparently made a significant impact, also on how the healthcare consumers think about the available disease treatment solutions, including buying medicines. Thus, in this article, I shall, focus on this area.

Why winning the Covid-19 war can’t be immediate: 

Covid-19 pandemic brought the drug industry under a sharp focus of the entire world, with an expectation to win the war against this deadly and invisible virus. This solution could be anything – an effective prevention, such as, with a vaccine, or a curing the infection with a drug, or even a mechanism that is able to make the virus less contagious. There are still no scientifically proven and approved drugs or vaccines for Covid-19. Although, many trial and error experiments are in progress, mainly based on anecdotes and gut-feeling, for the respiratory disease caused by Coronavirus.

The good news is, since January 2020, after scientists in China provided the virus’s genetic sequence, over 40 teams of global drug companies and the academia, are working on a vaccine and drugs for Covid-19. As of now, six Coronavirus vaccines are on clinical trial. Last Thursday, human safety trial of Oxford University developed Covid-19 vaccine, with the first two of 800 healthy volunteers, has commenced. Meanwhile, Serum Institute of India (SII) has tied-up with the Oxford University to manufacture the vaccine in India, if the trial succeeds.

Some bad news in this area also came by, such as, ‘remdesivir’ – the well-hyped drug, thought to be one of the best prospects for treating Covid-19, failed to have any effect during the first full trial. However, Gilead – the drug company developing this product has said, ‘the findings were inconclusive because the study was terminated early.’

The bottom-line is, although, first tests for more new vaccines may commence within a few months, the final regulatory approval of these will take much longer - at least 18 months, i.e. not before 2022, according to W.H.O. Meanwhile, some disruptive changes within current health care delivery systems, involving both behavior and transaction practices of key stakeholders, may prompt equally disruptive changes in the Indian health care delivery mechanisms. These changes are likely to have unforeseen impact on several pharma operations, critical for business excellence in the drug industry.

Commonly followed procedures for the Indian healthcare system:

The procedures that most health care consumers currently follow for healthcare in India, require patients to be physically present in most touchpoints of a disease treatment process. These include, doctors, chemist shops, hospitals, diagnostic clinics, among others. During the national lockdown period, redressal of non-Covid-19 related common health issues, has been a great challenge for many people, such as:

  • visiting a doctor
  • going to a hospital outdoor
  • procurement of medicines from retail shops for chronic conditions
  • visiting a diagnostic clinic even for follow-up – previously advised by a doctor

This happened primarily due to the need of compliance of social distancing and mostly out of fear of getting the Covid-19 infection. Fortunately, the available digital platforms to address the pressing common health issues, proved to be of immense help to many.

Pharma business has also been greatly impacted: 

Driven by initial panic buying of regular medicines by the people, for the lockdown period and may be beyond, monthly sales of pharma might show a spurt. But, that is unlikely to be the real picture for a medium to long term. Otherwise, like many other industry sectors, pharma business has also been greatly impacted by the Covid-19 outbreak, across its various domains – right from planned R&D – through manufacturing, sales and marketing – to supply chain.

The early adopters to the new normal will be the outright winners:

For example, meeting a doctor for product detailing following the conventional chain of activities, and simultaneously maintaining strict ‘personal distancing’ or ‘social distancing norms, may not be the same again. The changes required by the pharma companies to make this process effective and productive, may also be disruptive in nature.

No-one can accurately predict toady, how exactly the important business operations can be resumed, ensuring full health-safety for all and with compromising on the effectiveness and productivity of business. Nevertheless, one thing for sure, lockdown during Covid-19 pandemic has brought the possibility and the opportunity of going digital to the fore, for both – the healthcare business and also its consumers, including various other stakeholders. The early adopters to the new normal are expected to be the outright winners.

Green shoots of digitalization within healthcare consumers and providers: 

As digital transformation at health care consumers and providers level, gain a critical mass, the healthcare business would require to be not just digitalized, but also digitally innovative. The situation would demand from them to be much more ‘customer centric’ on digital platforms, as the locked down – homebound health care consumers, complying with ‘social distancing’ norms, get increasingly more digitally empowered.

Bain & Company in its March 20 ‘Brief’, titled ‘How the Coronavirus Will Transform Healthcare in China,’ discussed some of these issues from China perspective, which are already visible there. To illustrate this point in this deliberation from the Indian perspective, let me draw examples from the country’s health care consumers’ standpoint.

Is the traditional health care system slowly undergoing a metamorphosis?

The overall impact of Covid-19 outbreak in India has made visiting general practitioner’s (GP) clinics, pathological labs or even hospital emergency facilities, a tough challenge for many patients. This is primarily out of fear of getting a Coronavirus infection from others during the process, with strict compliance to ‘social distancing’ becoming a top priority for many. Consequently, traditional healthcare related activities in India, is likely to undergo an early metamorphosis.

Being literally locked down at home, a good number of healthcare consumers in India, are utilizing innovative digital platforms, for common illnesses or follow-up consultations, such as:

  • for medical consultation on digital platforms, e.g., Skype, Facetime etc.
  • getting diagnostic tests done at home by requesting through digital apps,
  • sending test reports to doctors digitally,
  • getting doctors prescription through digital mode,
  • ordering medicines through e-pharmacy apps by uploading prescriptions,
  • getting medicines delivered at home after e-payment,
  • repeating the same process whenever required.

An upside of the situation: 

The upside of the situation is, these patients are feeling more digitally empowered and self-reliant to get non-too-serious ailments addressed against all odds. Some of these practices, such as, online consultation with doctors, getting most of the medical tests done at home, buying medicines through e-pharmacies, I reckon, may continue even after calibrated withdrawal of the national lockdown in India.  The net impact of all could trigger a meaningful attitudinal change in patients, especially towards health care delivery processes, in general.

The healthcare industry is ready to log on to this digital mode? 

Many early adopters in the global pharma industry, are going for digitalization within various functional domains of the company, at a varying scale. This has started happening in India, as well. However, as social distancing becomes the new normal in the foreseeable future, how prepared are the pharma companies to adopt themselves with the increasing number of digitally empowered consumers, is still unclear. More importantly, how will the industry meet new demands at various points of transaction and interaction with various critical stakeholders, such as, doctors, in the post Covid-19 eraof social distancing, ensuring health safety of all?

Another requirement that should form the bedrock of the grand integrated corporate strategy of a customer-centric pharma business, necessarily, in the changing times. This is – all decisions in this area must be based on a huge pool of contemporary data, analyzed by sophisticated data analytics and thereafter, the strategic and tactical pathways need to be charted, desirably, through skillful application of Artificial Intelligence (AI), because of evolving complex and multi-dimensional health care needs of the consumers.

Alongside, telemedicine in different new formats – even for GP level consultations, besides, drug procurement through e-payment from approved e-pharmacies by uploading doctor prescriptions, signal a great potential in the years ahead. This appears to be very close to reality, especially, going by the W.H.O prediction for a long-haul Covid-19 battle, where compliance with ‘social distancing,’ is one of the basic requirements of health safety for all.

Conclusion:

‘Month of lockdown impedes virus – a long battle lies ahead’. As the former President of the Unites States twitted on April 25, 2020, ‘If we want life to approach anything like normal anytime soon, we need a comprehensive testing program. It’s not going to be cheap, but it will ultimately pay off many times over in saved lives, saved businesses, and saved jobs.’

In any case the crux of the matter is, Covid-19 is not going to vanish soon, even after scaling down of the lockdown in a calibrated way. Moreover, the fear, if not the panic of a large population in India and around the world, on the possibility of getting infected by Covid-19, will continue – till one does not get vaccinated or acquire ‘herd immunity’ in a different way. Meanwhile, related behavioral changes and habits, of a large number of people, including health care consumers, will continue taking place.

From this perspective, besides the existing ones, once the lockdown-period-converted ‘e-consumers’ of health care get used to the new digital mode of availing healthcare services against e-payments, it could have a snowballing impact on many others. That will help usher in a new paradigm of medical consultation, follow-up interaction, disease diagnosis, drug procurement and all related transactions, through digital platforms.

Having experienced the convenience and user-friendliness of the digital mode, during an extended period of social or physical distancing and other new normal, instead of time-consuming legwork, it seems unlikely that the majority will try to go back to the traditional mode of pre-Covid 19 era. In that situation pharma companies will have no option but to necessarily re-engineer the business operations, bringing disruptive digitalization at the center of any strategy formulation related to mainly patients and doctors, besides others.

Covid-19 prompted lockdown and the post lockdown period, I reckon, is unlikely to be a ‘switch-off’ and ‘switch-on’ type of a situation for anyone or any industry, as threat of getting Coronavirus infected will continue for quite some time. The need of the hour for pharma players in India, therefore, is gaining deep insight, through continuous data capturing and analysis, on each component of the changing market dynamics – prompted by Coronavirus pandemic. The point to ponder, therefore, is pharma industry getting ready for a possible disruptive change in the future environment?

By: Tapan J. Ray  

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.

An Essential ‘Acrobatic Feat’ Remains Relevant Even In Digital Pharma World

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“A manager must, so to speak, keep his nose to the grindstone while lifting his eyes to the hills — quite an acrobatic feat!” This profound statement was articulated by the Management Guru of all-time – Peter F. Drucker, in his book named “The Practice of Management.” This book was published probably before many management experts of today were even born – in 1954. This epic quote of Drucker is in context of the critical requirement to harmonize management decisions affecting the short and the long-term strategic business goals.

While looking at the pharma industry from the above perspective, one may often find, the quality-time spent, especially by its marketers, on ‘lifting their eyes to the hills’ – looking for the early signals on critical changes in future success requirement – is often minimal. Most seem comfortable in ‘keeping their nose to the grindstone’ to deliver the short-term objectives, with a belief that the future brand success factors will replicate the present ones. Thus, honing the current strategies would automatically ensure achieving the long-term requirements.

This prompts a question, should pharma marketers predominantly concentrate on sharpening their traditional marketing tools for near-term excellence or reach out much beyond that? Today’s article will deliberate on this subject, in the context of changing market dynamics and consumer expectations in the today’s world.

Are the brand success parameters changing?

Scores of data-based assessments of progressive changes in the customer value trend, highlight significant shifts from the past, necessitating an overhaul of the value delivery parameters and the system – not just honing. More often than not, such reconditioning could even be disruptive in nature – as may happen with the change to a well-integrated digital marketing system.

For example, until recently pharma brands used to be differentiated primarily based on its intrinsic key features and benefits, like efficacy and speed of recovery, safety and side-effects profile, ease of compliance and nature of drug interactions during concomitant use and more. Today, the parameters of brand differentiation have gone much beyond that, which could have been captured by an astute marketer while ‘lifting his eyes to the hills’, alongside ‘keeping his nose to the grindstone.’

The evolving parameters of brand-differentiation are not just restricted to the features and benefits, but call for unique customer value creation – such as providing a unique treatment experience to patients – understanding their needs, expectations and preferences. This, in turn, change the traditional pharma marketing ball game, as the success ingredients are so different.

Capturing, conceptualizing and delivering customer value, following the traditional pharma marketing tools and processes will increasingly be a daunting task. New digital tools and platforms – well-integrated into the evolving pharma marketing processes, would be necessary to win customers’ share of mind, more effectively than ever before. Nevertheless, value delivery still remains at the core of the pharma marketing system.

Value delivery still remains at the core – with significant changes: 

Value delivery will always remain the core purpose, and a constant factor in pharma marketing initiatives. It was so in the past, is at present, and will continue to be in the future, regardless of changes in the market and customer dynamics.

Nonetheless, what is construed as ‘value’ to capture a sizeable share of consumers’ mind has changed. Traditionally, it has been mostly intrinsic to the organization, revolving around the product features and benefits, as stated earlier. But, today, it is getting more focused on the extrinsic factor – related to the customers.

Thus, creating a unique experience for them with the brand has become the new challenge of change to pharma marketers for performance excellence, as I discussed in one of my recent articles. Consequently, providing this external and well-researched ‘customer-centric value’ has become the new brand differentiator.

While ‘lifting eyes to the hills’, some interesting findings:

Among many others, Decision Support Group (DCG), as well, while ‘lifting their eyes to the hills,’ well-captured the emerging consumer expectations in health care through a detailed study. This was published as ‘Cybercitizen Health Infographic’ on October 27, 2015. Let me paraphrase below some of the important findings of this study:

  • As customers are expecting pharma to provide best-in-class patient experience and associated services in the disease treatment process, marketers need to differentiate brands through these parameters.
  • 59 percent of health care consumers expect brand experiences and services beyond what the physical brand offers.
  • Only 8 percent of the respondents said pharma companies are providing a better customer experience than 2 years ago, while 30 percent said so for doctors, and 21 percent regarding pharmacists.
  • 40 percent of the consumers who value experience as much as drug effectiveness, would pay a little more for a drug or a health procedure.

How is this extrinsic value measured?

As confirmed by several studies, going beyond what a physical pharma brand would offer, the customers, including individuals who pay from the pocket for a disease treatment, measure the value of a drug today differently. It is now predominately by outcomes, the patients’ overall experience during the treatment, and overall – cost-effectiveness of the entire process, and not just the medicine.

Thus, the pharma market is sending a clear signal to the marketers to ‘shape up’ accordingly, soon and start with measuring care by outcomes – going beyond the product features and benefits – just as patients would do. If not, there could be a strong possibility of being ‘shipped out’, as the marketing productivity could head south, with more capable professionals filling up the void.

Commensurate changes in marketing success measurement:

The emerging changes in measuring ‘marketing success’ were aptly demonstrated in the article, ‘Redefining Value: What Value-Based Care Means for Pharma’, published by the Intouch Solutions on July 07, 2016.

It said: ‘Once, success simply meant a “blockbuster” – a drug that sold enough.’ However, this paradigm is shifting. Soon, it will be measured by the value of outcomes with the brand – the positive impact that it creates on the patient’s health, leaving behind a unique treatment experience.

To be successful with the brand, the marketer will, therefore, need to create a genuine, credible and powerful data-based outcome story. It should effectively demonstrate how the unique brand value offerings, supported by services can make it possible. The services may include, among others:

  • Supporting patients in managing their condition as part of their life.
  • Educating patients and helping them feel empowered in the treatment decision making process.
  • Helping patient access to medication.
  • Assisting patients in developing and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

For many pharma marketers this exercise will involve a strategic shift in their thinking process. Embracing a fundamental change in the way they have been practicing traditional pharma marketing all these years.

Are some of these changes disruptive in nature?

Several of the aforesaid changes may appear disruptive to many, causing a discomfort of moving out of their comfort zones. Some may even try to wish it away, and continue practicing the traditional pathways as long as these help achieving some results. But, not certainly for a long while. In which case, it will be akin to delaying a greater disruption before ultimately getting caught off-guard.

Dr. Vas Narasimhan, Chief Executive of the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis, puts it nicely. He advised, ‘the key to surviving disruption is understanding that a leader needs to be prepared to embrace it – even if that means willfully disrupting yourself.’

However, the good news is, digital transformation of a business makes embracing this change less difficult. Which is why, a number of companies are trying to seriously engage in digital marketing. Let me hasten to add, the ‘digital transformation process’, regardless of promises that many self-styled experts would make, is tough. It makes the organization chart an uncharted frontier and starts from the very top.

Digital transformation follows an arduous path, starting from the very top: 

There are many descriptions of the ‘digital transformation process’. However, the one that appealed to me is the one that comes from the Agile Elephant. It describes the process as follows:

‘Digital transformation is the process of shifting your organization from a legacy approach to new ways of working and thinking using digital, social, mobile and emerging technologies.  It involves a change in leadership, different thinking, the encouragement of innovation and new business models, incorporating digitization of assets and an increased use of technology to improve the experience of your organization’s employees, customers, suppliers, partners and stakeholders.’

The recent examples in this regard that come at the top of my mind, include:

Does digital marketing transform the brand value delivery process? 

Digital marketing facilitates the new and extrinsic brand value delivery process, as the use of this technology is all pervasive in our everyday life. Interestingly, almost all businesses, mostly in the organized sectors and technology startups, are trying to leverage digital technology to create sets of differential customer values.

And then integrating those to the core marketing strategy, for effective delivery of a crafted solution to the patients’ comprehensive needs, will be a challenging task. Moving in this direction, besides creating interactive websites, many drug players are using a number of digital tools, including social media sites, to start with. These are all serving as integrated digital marketing platforms to engage with targeted customers.

It’s apparently a foregone conclusion today that ‘the traditional one-way relationship in our health care system, will soon change to two-way relationship.’ Where interactive digital marketing, social media and other similar platforms, will facilitate building such relationship for a meaningful exchange of information with the target groups, transforming in the healthcare landscape.

Some key transformation areas with the digital marketing system:

As Agile Elephant puts it, the following are a few examples of key healthcare transformation areas with digital marketing:

  • The efficacy of treatment will be transparent with cost-effective data-based outcomes story.
  • Data transparency will follow data visualization enhancing how patient data is communicated to them, or how certain medications and treatments are affecting different areas of the physiological system.
  • Patients will be empowered to play an active role in their health care.
  • Patients disease treatment experience could be optimized across multiple touchpoints’.

Conclusion:

Currently, it appears, most pharma marketers ‘keep their nose to the grindstone’ to continue honing the traditional processes of brand marketing with an expectation for better return. However, if they could find time for ‘lifting eyes to the hills’ with all seriousness, they will be able to sense a shifting paradigm with a new set of marketing success factors. If not done even now, it could perhaps be too late to make amends for business sustainability.

Many may get carried away by the hype of digitalization as a panacea, but this is just a facilitating technology – to be in sync with, among others, the evolving values of pharma customers, through innovative value delivery systems. Regardless of digitalization all around us, the name of the game that differentiate men from the boys in this game, remains – generation of cutting-edge ideas. Only this can transform – effective delivery of differentiated ‘customer value’ into business excellence.

Interestingly, to accomplish this objective meaningfully, the aforesaid ‘acrobatic feat’, as enunciated by Peter Drucker in 1954, remains relevant and essential for pharma marketers, just as all other managers, even in the digital pharma world.

By: Tapan J. Ray 

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.

Is Pharma Industry A Late Learner, Always?

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Several upcoming concepts in the pharmaceutical industry are becoming buzzwords today. But, most of these were recommended by stalwarts several decades ago. Interestingly, the prevailing scenario is no different, even related to wide-scale adoption of a number of cutting-edge technologies, to squarely face the ongoing challenge of changing market dynamics. Various studies point out that other industries are making transformative use of these – to be on the same page with their customers, much faster.

Pharma is considered to be a late entrant in the digital space, too. It’s still not quite clear to many, the extent by which ‘Digitalization’ is transforming the way pharma industry functions – aiming at unleashing huge opportunities for value creation – from supply chain to manufacturing – right up to creating a unique customer experience. As this subject was well deliberated in the August 2016 article on McKinsey Digital, I am not going to delve into that area today.

Therefore, the question that comes up: Is pharma industry, in general, a late learner – always, to be in sync with its contemporary customers? For exploring this point, I shall focus mainly on four areas of current hypes in the pharma business, namely - ‘patient empowerment’, ‘patient-centricity’, ‘customer experience’ and ‘E-Patients’.

In this article, I shall dwell on this subject, ferreting out some critical recent findings on the relevance of these not so recent concepts in today’s perspective. Let me start by diving deep into the time capsule.

How old are these concepts?

Industry watchers may know that these are not new concepts, in any way. The relevance of ‘patient empowerment’, ‘patient-centricity’, ‘customer experience’ and ‘E-Patients’ in the drug industry has not unfolded today, neither are these new ideas. The American medical doctor - Thomas William ”Tom” Ferguson (July 8, 1943 – April 14, 2006) was an early advocate for ‘patient empowerment’.

Since 1975: “He urged patients to educate themselves and share knowledge with one another and urged doctors to collaborate with patients rather than command them. Predicting the Internet’s potential for disseminating medical information long before it became a familiar conduit, he was an early proponent of its use, terming laymen who did so – ‘E-Patients‘.”  

Technology follows a concept and not vice versa:

With ‘E-Patient’ terminology, Dr. Thomas Ferguson talked about empowered, engaged, equipped and enabled patients. I reckon, even after close to 45 years, most of the drug industry, is still not quite there – ‘Digitalization’ initiatives notwithstanding. This is because, technology follows a concept and not vice versa.

Why it’s so?

I reckon, this is primarily because, many stakeholders often don’t pay much importance to a critical fact, which is: ‘Patient expectations and needs can differ considerably from the aims and objectives of health care providers, at both the policy and delivery levels,’ and also by many drug companies. Still, most of these entities are yet to lap up this concept.

Is reviving focus on ‘Patient Centricity’ a realistic proposition today?

Several studies in this area have concluded, to be accepted by patients, the patient experience should be the key driver for the development of solutions.’ These include, medicines, devices, information, support programs and even digital apps. Among many others, one such study was published on March 28, 2017, in the SAGE Journals, titled, ‘Patient Centricity and Pharmaceutical Companies: Is It Feasible?’

The basic question of its feasibility would prompt: ‘Would this approach help pharma players to make enough profit with the drugs?’ While addressing this query, the researchers put across the following points that need to be seriously reflected on:

  • Profit is necessary. But, how drug companies make and use business ‘profit’ is more important for long-term business sustainability.
  • It requires a clear vision at the top of creating and delivering ‘customer value’ as patients will perceive, followed by a robust assertion of ‘Patient Centricity’ across the business domains.
  • This will help break out of the cycle of “recover costs of R&D – make a profit – invest in new drugs – make more profit.” The new ball game will be – profit through customer satisfaction – invest in new drugs for greater ‘customer value and more customer satisfaction’
  • Such commitments, in turn, will help generate not just reasonable profit, but credibility with external stakeholders – such as, patients, regulators, media, etc. – creating an invaluable reputation for the organization, as a future growth booster.

Since old practices have continued for very long, virtually unchanged, a legacy factor has now crept into the system, mostly as a retarding force.

A legacy issue to overcome:

As the above research article underscores: ‘Historically, the pharmaceutical industry’s role has been to develop the science and medicines for prevention or treatment of disease.’ Whereas, ‘Patient Centricity’ involves patients as stakeholders in this scientific process. It calls for an innovative mindset, whereby ‘the industry is challenged to engage and collaborate with patients when deciding the best course of action.’ This need is now palpable within the industry, at the long last. 

Palpable needs for a new focus on designing ‘healthcare solutions’:

With the shift in the environment around the industry and its stakeholders, including patients, are feeling the need to ferret out some old classic concepts for a new focus in designing various ‘healthcare solutions.’ For this purpose, as the above research article reiterated, a better understanding of ‘patient experience’ at critical points, in the course of the diagnosis and treatment of the disease, would help designing more effective ‘health care solutions’ for better patient outcomes.

The commercial necessity for better patient outcomes, merits ‘Patient Centricity’ at the core of the pharma business model, which, in turn, calls for a shift in the cultural mindset within the pharmaceutical industry. Such a shift would involve, among others:

  • Redefining the core strategy, organizational structure, processes and capabilities to focus on transparency and value creation for the patient.
  • A change from a disease-centered to a patient-centered strategy, and from a product-led to a patient-led development process.
  • Listening to and partnering with patients, and understanding the patient perspective, rather than simply inserting patient views into the established process.

Therefore, ‘patient-centric’ initiatives of any company should begin with the basic question: how can the company make a difference for patients?

The new realization: Compete better to win, neutralizing healthcare consumerism:

To better compete and win even in the midst of evolving healthcare consumerism, instead of adding fuel to it around the world, including India, a new book – ‘Making the Healthcare Shift: The Transformation to Consumer-Centricity,’ brings some contemporary ideas where, again, many old ideas seems to have been tested with a new perspective.

Interestingly, the content of this book is based on over 60 executive interviews with the biggest names in healthcare and a quantitative research study. Some of these names include leading academic institutions, such as, the Mayo Clinic, USCF Medical Center; big drug companies like Pfizer, Lilly and Novartis. The book reveals, while healthcare organizations have recognized the need to change to ‘Patient Centricity, they often don’t know where or how to begin.

To help healthcare organizations reinvent how even traditional pharma players engage with consumers in the new paradigm, the authors identify five shifts that pharma players can make to better compete and win in this evolving landscape of healthcare consumerism. 

Need to ‘reinvent the wheel’, is more than ever before!

To ascertain the above point, I shall paraphrase just a few – ‘Patient-Centric’ and ‘Customer Experience’ related areas of the book along with my own views to help you to come to your own logical conclusion:

  • To provide a holistic disease treatment solution, keeping the patients engaged along the entire journey in the disease treatment process, pharma players should bring ‘consumer experience’ at the core of the business model. As I also deliberated in this blog that: ‘Enhancing End-To-End Customer Experience’ is, therefore, considered by many astute pharma marketers, as a vital ingredient of pharma brand building exercise. In that article, I articulated, such initiatives should cover, all the ‘’touchpoints’ and ‘episodes.’ Where ‘touchpoints’ are spots of contact or interaction and ‘episodes’ focus on end-to-end design of a specific customer-need for an organization. Aligning management and the front line around the customer experience, is critical.
  • As things stand today, the entire journey through the disease diagnosis and treatment process, in the current healthcare ecosystem, remains fragmented. Mostly because, it involves many ‘touchpoints’ and ‘episodes,’ comprising of different health care entities. Providers’ inefficiencies, of various types, encountered by patients at different points of this journey often lead to their frustration, causing an unpleasant ‘customer experience.’ To achieve this objective, by effectively addressing the aforesaid common denominator for all – ‘Patient-Centricity,’ is of paramount importance. This entails, as stated before, integrated measures for listening to and partnering with patients, alongside, placing patients’ well-being at the core of all healthcare business initiatives. From this perspective, ‘patient-centricity’ based on customer insights,represents a holistic approach to provide the disease management solutions.
  • With rapid advancement in medical science, culminating into several breakthrough innovations, the world has stepped into a new era of disease treatment solution. Increasingly, ‘one size fits all’ type of population-centric treatment, is giving away a sizeable space for a new ‘patient-centric’ variety of the same. Moving towards this direction would necessitate pharma players, along with all health care organizations to acquire a deep insight on patients. The acquired insights must be based on in-depth analysis of a robust and contemporary sets of data, including demography, attitude towards health, treatment needs and preferred options available to the targeted audience.

This brings me back to where I started from. Dr. Thomas William ”Tom” Ferguson and maybe several others, as well, had recommended similar approaches over four and a half decade ago. We did not learn it then. But, while fighting against all odds, as the industry has been facing over some time, some companies are feeling the need of learning it now. Better late than never!

Conclusion:

It has been universally accepted that market dynamics keep changing in all industries, may be faster in some than others. Looking back, one can sense similar ongoing changes both within the pharma industry and the business and social and cultural environments outside, especially related to its stakeholders. When faster, proactive changes take place within the industry than outside, it delights the customers. Similarly, faster changes in the outside environment that industry fails to keep pace with – deliberately or otherwise, will invite strong headwind impeding growth of the business and even denting its reputation. Although, the former one is desirable, the latter prevails in most areas of pharma business. A Working Paper of the Harvard Business School wanted to understand ‘How do organizations learn?’ It found, among others:

  • Performance outcomes can be augmented, if one deliberately focuses on learning from experience accumulated in the past.
  • The competitive advantage of firms critically depends on the skills of individual contributors. Hence, the centrality of individual and organizational learning is a critical factor for competitiveness of any organization.

This brings us to the question, what is a learning organization. From many similar definitions of the same, let me quote the following one, as it is apt, simple and old enough for all to have learned: “A Learning Organization is the term given to a company that facilitates the learning of its members and continuously transforms itself.” (M. Pedler, J. Burgoyne and T. Boydell, 1997)

Keeping today’s deliberation in perspective, one may possibly conclude, quick individual learners, including the organizations, can offer better performance outcomes than late learners. As the pharma business is encountering a strong headwind for quite some time, it is up to the readers making out, what type of learner the industry, in general, is, and more importantly, why it is so?

By: Tapan J. Ray   

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.

Honing Patient Outcomes With WHDs

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On November 01, 2019, San Francisco-based Fitbit, Inc. announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Google LLC for approximately US$ 2.1 billion. Many believe, though, the value of Fitbit lies in the health data that its wearables capture for its large base of users.

According to the CEO of Fitbit, currently the Fitbit brand supports more than 28 million active users around the globe who rely on these wearable products ‘to live a healthier, more active life.’ With Google’s resources and global platform, Fitbit will be able to accelerate innovation in the wearables category, scale faster, and make health even more accessible to everyone, he added.

The article – ‘The Real Reason Google Is Buying Fitbit,’ published in the Time magazine on November 04, 2019 makes some interesting points, such as the following:

  • The fast-growing healthcare tech space could be worth US$24 billion by 2020, says an estimate from Statista.
  • Although, Google has been working on cardiovascular health, diabetes and more, it hasn’t been publicly pushing healthcare as a business proposition, just yet.
  • Whereas, Google’s rivals, most notably Apple, have embraced healthcare as the next big battleground in the tech world, attracted by the promises of big profits for those who can help simplify a byzantine healthcare system.

Nonetheless, the Fitbit acquisition would facilitate Google’s entry into the Wearable Health Devices (WHDs) market in a big way, alongside other big players, such as, Apple and Samsung.

Driven by the most likely scenario of increasing usage and usefulness of WHDs, several pharma players are sniffing huge underlying commercial opportunity in this space, alongside being demonstrably patient-centric. Thus, my today’ article will deliberate whether or not WHDs will be able to offer a cutting edge to innovative drug marketers, by continually honing patient outcomes. Let me initiate this discussion by fathoming the importance of WHDs in the fast transforming digital world.

The importance of WHDs in the digital world:

‘Mary Meeker‘s 2019 Internet Trends Report’ highlights, about 51 percent of the global population is now connected to the internet, with the majority of users based in China, India and the United States. However, global internet user growth has slowed down by 6 percent and it’s becoming increasingly harder to get the rest of the world online.

In this background, especially - ‘As patients become more involved in making decisions about their health care, research shows, the result is increased satisfaction and improved health outcomes.’Consequently, the report spotlights healthcare digitization where consumer adoption of digital health tools is increasing rapidly. Some of the top areas, in terms of their speed of adoption, were listed as follows:

  • Online Health Information
  • Online Provider Reviews
  • Mobile Tracking
  • Wearables
  • Live Video Telemedicine

This gives a sense of how fast the WHDs are gaining importance for the consumers. Interestingly, Intouch Group also points out that wearables are now being used more to manage a diagnosis rather than just fitness trackers. Adding further, it pointed out – ‘Apple’s ResearchKit is an example of what CEO Tim Cook calls the “democratization of healthcare,” in that it provides health data directly to consumers so they can manage their health.’

A recent study on the scope of wearables: 

The scope of WHDs was aptly corroborated in a recent article – ‘The Rise of Wearable Technology in Health Care,’ published in the JAMA Network Open on February 01, 2019. The paper concludes, the general principle of commercially available ubiquitous wearable computers bodes well for our future ability to measure, track, and understand patient physiological data and behavior both in the hospital and at home.

The ability to capture such data, then applying machine learning to get the evolving health trends and sending alerts to patient accordingly – nurses, and physicians are instantaneously getting empowered to deliver patient outcomes. The fact that the alert can come easily via the patients’ smartphones that a significant part of the global population now carries with them, leading to further democratization of health care.

The Economist  also predicted, by 2020 – 80 percent of the adult population of the world would have a smartphone in their pocket. Therefore, this development opens up an entirely new world of real-time data acquisition, monitoring, and intervention, the paper underscored.

Giving a relevant example, it highlighted: ‘On December 6, 2018, Apple rolled out a software upgrade that turns the Apple Watch Series 4 into a personal electrocardiogram.’ The researchers further added, while WHDs’ fidelity may not yet exactly match medical-grade monitors and devices, these are “good enough” coupled with around-the-clock capabilities, real-time data capture, storage, and analytics and seem likely to provide real value.

The opportunities with WHDs:

Both from the health and business perspectives, WHDs are opening new vistas of opportunities for all stakeholders in the healthcare space, such as, patients, doctors, care providers and also pharma companies. This was enunciated in several studies, such as one, titled ‘Wearable Health Devices – Vital Sign Monitoring, Systems and Technologies,’ published by Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) on July 25, 2018.

This paper also reiterated: ‘Wearable Health Devices (WHDs) are increasingly helping people to better monitor their health status both at an activity/fitness level for self-health tracking and at a medical level providing more data to clinicians with a potential for earlier diagnosis and guidance of treatment. The technology revolution in the miniaturization of electronic devices is enabling to design more reliable and adaptable wearables, contributing to a world-wide change in the health monitoring approach.’

Thus, a big excitement is currently palpable around the technology related to WHDs. Many more opportunities are expected to unfold for continuation of the ascending trend. With the entry of big global tech giants such as, Apple and now Google, besides scores of small startups, WHDs of many types have started entering into the healthcare, carrying a promise to improving outcomes and creating a unique patient experience in the disease treatment process.

Improves outcomes, creates a unique disease treatment experience:

Echoing many other experts in this area, I also believe that WHDs have covered a lot of ground by now – expanding its usage from fitness trackers to diagnosis of disease and then monitoring the progress both during and after treatment. Current usages of WHDs are mostly for non-infectious chronic diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular conditions, sleeping disorders, obesity and treatment compliance, besides others. The list is gradually expected to expand.

Apparently, encouraged by this trend, more pharma players are now moving into this area for significant brand value for augmentation through better patient outcomes – apace with providing a unique disease treatment experience for suffering individuals.

The scope in India:

As WHDs have a close link with both Internet and Smartphone penetration, let me try to weigh the potential of the wearables, in view of the current status of both in the country.

According to the India Internet 2019 Report by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), the following three points are indeed noteworthy, besides others:

  • With 451 million monthly active internet users at the end of financial year 2019, India is now second only to China in this regard.
  • Urban India with 192 million users had almost the same number of users as rural India. However, in terms of percentages or penetration, given the disparity of population distribution in urban and rural India, urban India had a considerably higher penetration level.
  • In rural India, a sizable portion does not have access to the Internet, and provides a huge opportunity for growth which will contribute to an increase in the overall Internet population over the next few years, it said.

Similarly, according to the Statista report, for 2017, the number of smartphone users in India was estimated to reach 299.24 million, with the number of smartphone users worldwide forecast to exceed 2.3 billion users by that time, and was projected to be nearly 2.7 billion by 2019.

These numbers speak for themselves on the underlying opportunities of WHDs – both globally and locally. Accordingly, large pharma players have already started teaming up to deliver better patient outcomes, leveraging the value of WHDs.

Pharma players teaming up to deliver better patient outcomes with WHD:

There are several such examples. Nevertheless, to illustrate the point, let me cite one such recent instance of Abbott Laboratories announcing a deal on February 20, 2019 with Novo Nordisk to make diabetes management easier by linking technologies of the two companies. The deal will allow integration of insulin dose data for Novo Nordisk’s pre-filled and connected pens with its ‘FreeStyle’ Libre mobile app and cloud-based system.

‘Abbott’s ‘FreeStyle’ Libre Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) system will read glucose levels through a sensor that can be worn on the back of the upper arm eliminating the need for routine finger pricks. Through the FreeStyle LibreLink app users can capture and view their real-time glucose levels, their eight-hour glucose history, and how their glucose is currently changing on their smartphone.’

Yet another report highlighted, ‘Google sister-company Verily is teaming with big pharma on clinical trials.’ On May 21, 2019, the company announced strategic alliances with the pharmaceutical companies Novartis, Sanofi, Otsuka and Pfizer to help it move more deeply into the medical studies market. The goals for Verily, and its pharma partners, are to reach patients in new ways, make it easier to enroll and participate in trials, and aggregate data across a variety of sources, including the electronic medical record or health-tracking wearable devices,’ the report emphasized.

Conclusion:

It seems clear that in the rapidly transforming digital world, many drug companies are realizing the criticality of making their business operations sine qua non with the evolving trend is essential. This is not just for the organization progress, but also for long-term survival of the business. In the midst of this exciting technological environment, the potential value of WHDs to deliver better patient outcomes is being brought to the fore, primarily by the pure tech companies.

Figuring out the magnitude of the new opportunity, several pharma companies have thrown their hats in the ring, primarily in the form of collaborative deals. This ushers in a new phase in the healthcare space. Mostly because, such initiatives will have to be patient-centric for providing a unique patient experience with the drugs, in the disease treatment process. As India too, is taking rapid strides for penetration of digital technology in its ‘Health for All’ initiatives, the use of WHDs for better and cost-effective patient outcomes isn’t a pipe dream, any longer.

The evolving scenario, therefore, opens yet another door for the pharma players to grow their business, not just with drugs offering differential value, but also by making even a ‘me-too’ drug perform better, leveraging the potential of WHDs, effectively. From this perspective, continuously honing patient outcomes with WHDs, appears to be a unique tool for pharma marketers to make use of – in search of excellence.

By: Tapan J. Ray   

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.

 

A Link To Ponder: Pharma Digitalization – Cyber Threats – Cyber Immunity

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Digitalization in the pharmaceutical industry – slowly but steadily, across its various domains, from drug discovery, clinical development, supply chain, sales and marketing to engage with various stakeholders, is a reality today. Consequently, the concept of data as a business asset, is fast taking the center stage, being the nerve center of the business. It encompasses, conceiving data requirement, generation of a massive pool of credible data accordingly, their analysis and finally – putting a robust data security system in place, against any kind of theft or misuse.

While digitalization of pharma business, helps transform the company to an all-time ready and an agile customer-centric business entity, with one ear always listening to customers to delight them with its deliverables. Conversely, the other ear is on its employees with a similar objective. This is a difficult task and mostly involves disruption of status-quo within the organization, but often produces game changing outcomes for the business, as is known to many.

Which is why, one sees a good number of people around, offering expert digital services for the pharma industry – along with a hope of a never before improvement in the future organizational performance. So far so good, but this transformation process also invites a huge technology-related threat to business – ‘Cyberthreat.’ In this article, I shall focus on the critical need of taking guard against this threat, as is often advised by all well-qualified domain experts. This risk is expected to increase further, as the technology keeps advancing.

Although, I had deliberated on Cybersecurity in my article, ‘Exigency of Cybersecurity in Digitalized Pharma,’ in a different context, before delving into the core point of today’s discussion, let us together try to recapitulate what does ‘Cyberthreat’ mean to us, in the real world.

Cyber-threat in the digitalized business:    

Let me paraphrase, especially in context of the pharma industry, what the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) of the Government of the United States, has stated. It articulates, ‘Cybersecurity’ or ‘Cyber threats’ to a control system, refer to the attempts of unauthorized access to a control system device and/or network using a data communications pathway.

This access can be directed from within an organization by trusted users or from remote locations by unknown persons using the Internet. Threats to control systems can come from numerous sources, including disgruntled employees, and malicious intruders. To protect against these threats, it is necessary to create a secure cyber-barrier around the Industrial Control System (ICS).

Many sources indicate that the threat to cyber security in business, is often triggered to gain access to a company’s digital system to damage or steal data, or even to rattle its digital infrastructure for accomplishing a specific purpose.

Rapid digitalization in pharma may attract more cyber criminals:

According to a senior official of Kaspersky - a global cyber security company: “As rapid digitalization penetrates the healthcare sector, cyber criminals are seeing more opportunities to attack this lucrative and critical industry, which is honestly not equipped enough to face this virtual danger.”

The company further emphasized, with systems are now interconnected and mobile devices extensively used, both for remote access and for data sharing, digitalization in pharma increasingly exposes the organizations to both generic and targeted attacks. Thus, ‘creating Cyber immunity’ to ensure a powerful safeguard against such threats, becomes a top priority area in the digital transformation process of the drug industry.

Interestingly, way back in 2012, another report had also cautioned: ‘Cybercrime costs economy billions annually, with pharmaceutical and biotech companies among the hardest hit.’

Evidences of Cyber-attacks on pharma across the world:

There are numerous evidences of Cyber-attacks on the pharma players, globally. Such as, in June 2017, The Washington Post reported, US-based global pharma major, was among dozens of businesses affected by a sprawling cyberattack, with victims across the globe facing demands to hand over a ransom or have their computer networks remain locked and inaccessible.

Another report of December 13, 2017 wrote, by the third quarter of the year, ‘Merck had a better idea of the financial tab from the attack. While it generally had a very solid quarter, the results were dampened by the impact of the attack. There were $300 million in lost sales and costs.’

The Deloitte paper, titled ‘Cyber & Insider Risk at a Glance: The Pharmaceutical Industry’, also reiterated, the evidence abounds that pharmaceutical companies are the target of sophisticated Internet criminals. Serious cyberattacks are taking place even in the most advanced countries, including the US, Europe and Japan.

In the US, besides Merck, hacking has taken place against other major pharma and medical device makers, such as, ‘Boston Scientific, Abbott Laboratories, and Wyeth, the drug maker acquired by Pfizer Inc. The same group successfully hacked the Food & Drug Administration’s computer center in Maryland, exposing sensitive data (including formulas and trial data) for virtually all drugs sold in the US,’ the paper revealed.

The real impact of the attack often doesn’t come out:

Outside world often doesn’t get to know about the comprehensive impact of numerous cyber-attacks for various reasons. Some of which may include, it’s possible aftermath on both the corporate image and also the brands, besides share prices. At the same time, the situation may prompt many to question the company’s capability to protect its business in the digitalized world.

The key reasons:

As the 2018 Data Security Incidence Report highlights, healthcare-led all industries accounted for around about 25 percent of more than 750 reported incidents, in volume. As identified by Kaspersky from various cyber-attack techniques and behavior of cyber-criminals, on the digital infrastructure of pharma players, let me paraphrase below the three key motivators, besides a few others:

  • Getting Intellectual Property (IP) related strategic details, including R&D, unpublished clinical trial results and formulation development processes.
  • Detailed business plans for pre-identified products.
  • Or, may even be for ransom.

Where does India stand?

According to reports, India ranks 6th for highest cyber-attacks on pharmaceutical companies. Nearly 45 per cent machines in the Indian pharmaceutical organizations more than four in 10 devices were detected with malicious attempts. Ahead of India features - Pakistan (54 per cent), Egypt (53 per cent), Mexico (47 per cent), Indonesia (46 per cent) and Spain (45 per cent).

Such attacks are taking place even in India, as cyber-criminals “are slowly realizing that pharmaceutical companies house a treasure trove of highly valuable data such as the latest drugs and vaccines, the newest researches, as well as medical secrets,” the report says.

Likewise, another article, published in Health Issues India, on September 17, 2019, made some interesting points. The article is titled, ‘Cyberattacks: A crisis in Indian pharma?’ It flagged in the following three areas, in this regard:

  • Numerous cracks exist in the cyber-security armor of Indian pharmaceutical companies.
  • Just five to ten percent possess security systems strong enough to protect information from hackers.
  • And many do learn about a breach for several months.

Quoting a top expert, the paper reemphasized that generally in the Indian pharma companies “current systems don’t have security control and visibility in place to immediately detect the attack and respond on a real-time basis.” Thus, ‘it is unsurprising that Indian pharma has been so hard hit by cybercrime,’ the article further commented.

Conclusion:

Echoing many others, Booz Allen also advised in its article – ‘Understand the risks, and stay ahead of the game.’ This is a critical requirement in the digital age. Although, most pharma companies agree on the possibility of huge business losses from a cyber-attack, the industry continues to lag behind other industries when it comes to cyber-security implementation, the paper reiterated.

On the other hand, just strengthening a company’s IT systems, alongside an installation of powerful anti-virus software may still not be enough. Nor will it be adequate to working closely with the vendors who help protect cyber-security of the digital infrastructure of various companies. Even a robust system of forensic audit and analysis and reevaluating cyber-security protocols on an ongoing basis, may not be able to prevent cyber-attacks.

This is primarily because, a company is run, managed, looked after and cared by its employees. Although, it always remains the endeavor of any company to hire good, trustworthy and high performing employees, it does not always happen that way. It is also equally possible that some of them, at some time, for some reasons, may misuse the digital network for others or personal gain.

Thus, besides putting in place all other safeguards, as stated above, to attain desirable ‘Cyber-Immunity’, it is crucial for the organization to ensure buy-in of each employees a vital concept. This is – protecting cyber-security is everybody’s responsibility in a digital business framework, both individually and collectively. The process should start from the CEO and percolate down to the lowest rung in the ladder of hierarchy.

Hence, the reality is – ongoing digital transformation process of the pharma business would open the door of cyber-threats – often leading to crippling cyber-attacks. Thus, developing a comprehensive and strong cyber-immunity framework becomes essential for the organization. From this perspective, right from the start of this process – and not later on, drug companies need to ponder over the critical link between digitalization and cyber threats to provide adequate cyber immunity to its digital systems, for game changing outcomes.

By: Tapan J. Ray   

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.

 

Pharma: ‘Digitalization’ Not A Panacea – A Basic Step For Giant Leaps

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The hype of ‘Digitalization’ in the pharma industry, virtually as a panacea, is palpable all around. It gives many a feel, directly or indirectly, that this one-time, resource-intensive, disruptive transformation would reap a rich harvest for a long time. In some way, good or bad, the sense of urgency underlying the hype, could possibly be akin to Y2K, that one witnessed before the turn of the new millennium.

Notwithstanding the current ballyhoo, the process of digitization in several Indian pharma companies began since quite some time and is now gathering wind in its wings. Several studies vindicating this point, were reported by the Indian media, as well. One such report of October 31, 2016 highlighted – even around 2013, a number of Indian drug players commenced adopting digitization. They mostly began with the use of modern technology for scientific detailing to doctors, often using algorithms for better insights into issues, like patient compliance. A similar trend was seen also in China, the report added.

Be that as it may, this article will explore whether or not ‘Digitalization’ is a panacea for all pharma business hurdles. Or, it is the backbone to build and maintain a patient-centric organization, with need-based subsequent giant technological leaps, for game changing sustainable outcomes. For better clarity of all, I shall dwell on this concept with AI as the next disruptive step, as it would play an increasingly critical role to be in sync with the customers of the fast-growing digital world.

Digitization is the bedrock to move forward with newer technologies:

That digitization is the backbone of AI adoption was brought out in the May 2019 paper by McKinsey Global Institute - titled, ‘Twenty-five years of digitization: Ten insights into how to play it right.’ It articulated, leveraging, and transitioning from, digital to new frontier technologies is an imperative, as several new frontier technologies are opening up, such as AI.  It also spotlighted that early digitization is the foundation of AI deployment.

Elaborating the point further, the article wrote: ‘70 percent of companies that generate 50 percent of their sales through digitization are already investing in one AI domain. The evidence suggests that incumbents that have adopted AI early and are savvy about deploying these technologies have experienced strong profit growth. In effect AI is a new, higher- performance type of digital technology that may boost the ability of firms to accelerate their digital performance.’

No doubt, several hundred AI use cases would provide evidence of widespread benefits to operations and profitability for AI adoption. However, from the drug industry perspective, the possible dilemmas that will be important to understand, what factors are prompting faster adoption of AI in pharma. Besides, how to make out – what type of use of AI is likely to be most effective for an organization.

Regardless of the dilemma, the AI buzz is gaining momentum:

The fervor around AI is now peaking up, more than ever before. Regardless of the general dilemma – ‘what type of use of AI is likely to be most effective for an organization.,’ several companies are working on AI application in various areas. In sales and marketing domain, these include, improving customer interactions, maximizing product launches, understanding patient insights. This was also corroborated in an article, published by ZS on July 24, 2019.

Why is the AI buzz increasing in pharma?

The above paper identifies 3 broad elements for rapid increase of AI buzz in the pharma industry, which I am paraphrasing as follows:

  • Data requirement for any meaningful business decision-making process has exploded, facilitated by increasing use of internet- based digital platforms.
  • With the increasing digitization of virtually anything in everyday life, paper-based processes are fast disappearing.
  • Realization of game changing impact of new AI algorithms with high degree of precision, on business.

As AI-based interventions are making a radical impact on everyday life, most pharma and biotech players are progressively getting convinced that it will eventually transform many critical areas of the business, despite a slow start.

AI can deliver much more than ever before, across pharma domains: 

AI has a great potential to meet critical requirements of almost all domains of the drug industry. For example: AI may be used to help a medical representative get top insights for his particular day’s or a week’s or a month’s call with doctors by sifting through all his daily reports for that period. Some companies are already moving into this direction. For example, Novartis, reportedly, has equipped sales representatives ‘with an AI service that suggests doctors to visit and subjects to talk up during their meetings.’

Similar AI-based cognitive insights may be obtained from the patient-collected data in the apps or other digital tools. Deep understanding of the process of thinking of important doctors and patients, would facilitate developing customized content for engagement with them, and thereby help achieve well-defined goals with precision.

There are instances of significant success with the use of AI in R&D, clinical trials, many areas of sales and marketing, including supply chains. Nevertheless, the general concern of sharing confidential patient information, often limits access to requisite data for use in AI solutions. Appropriate regulations are expected to address this apprehension, soon.

Big Pharma players are already in it:

The paper – ‘Artificial Intelligence in Life Sciences: The Formula for Pharma Success Across the Drug Lifecycle,’ published on December 05, 2018 by L.E.K Consulting, discussed this point in detail. It says, ‘each of the major pharma players is investing in the technology at some level.’

For example, pharma and biotech majors, such as Novartis, Roche, Pfizer, Merck, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi, AbbVie, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Johnson & Johnson, are either collaborating or acquired AI technologies to acquire a cutting-edge in business.

The paper also reiterates, developments in AI applications are occurring across the spectrum of pharma business, from target discovery to post-approval activities to automate processes, generate insights from large-scale data and support stakeholder engagement. Let me illustrate this point with an example below.

Example of use of AI for better patient compliance, improving sales and profit:

As highlighted in my article, published in this blog on May 20, 2019, effective use of AI for better patient compliance, can help improve concerned company’s both top and bottom lines. I mentioned there: ‘According to November 16, 2016 report, published by Capgemini and HealthPrize Technologies, globally, annual pharmaceutical revenue losses had increased from USD 564 billion in 2012 to USD 637 billion due to non-adherence to medications for chronic conditions. This works out to 59 percent of the USD 1.1 trillion in total global pharmaceutical revenue in 2015.’

Several reports vindicate that drug companies are making phenomenal progress in this area. Let me cite an example of achieving huge success to improve treatment adherence of patients during clinical trials. The September 26, 2016  Press Release of AiCure, an AI company that visually confirms medication ingestion on smartphones, announced that use of AiCure AI platform demonstrated 90 percent medication adherence in patients with schizophrenia, participating in Phase 2 of the AbbVie study.

Opportunity to make more effective drugs faster and at reduced cost:

Besides, drug discovery, clinical trials, patient monitoring, compliance monitoring – AI applications have been developed for marketing optimization, as well. As AI technology spreads its wings with a snowballing effect, taking a quantum leap in organizational effectiveness, productivity and outcomes will be a reality for many. Moreover, AI now offers a never before opportunity of making novel, more effective and safer drugs, faster and at much reduced cost.

Thus, I reckon, AI-based technology would be a basic requirement of the drug industry for effective operation with desirable business outcomes, in less than a decade. Its slow start as compared to many other industries, notwithstanding. Further, the pharma industry’s endeavor for a swift digital transformation – the backbone of AI adoption, as captured in recent surveys, also vindicates this belief. Other business realities are also generating a strong tailwind for this process.

Pharma’s swift digital transformation to create a solid base for AI:

The ‘White Paper’, titled ‘Use of Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Analytics in pharmaceuticals’ by FICCI captured this scenario quite well. It pointed out, two seismic shifts in the pharma business, namely, – reducing prices and demonstrating greater value from their therapies, along with a swing from treatment to prevention, diagnostics and cure – are prompting the industry for a holistic transformation of business.

Which is why, pharma players are exhibiting greater intent for ‘Digitalization’ of business, paving the way for quick adoption of different modern technologies, such as AI and advanced analytics. This fundamental shift will not only improve efficiencies and reduce costs, but also significantly help adapting to more patient centric business models. Yet, post digital transformation the key question that still remains to be addressed – how does an organization identify and focus on the right areas or ‘good problems’ for AI intervention, fetching game changing outcomes, on an ongoing basis.

Conclusion:

There could be many approaches to address this situation. However, according to ZS, building the capability and the muscle first for AI, and then looking for the problems, may not be a great idea. This could make a company, even post ‘Digitalization’, flounder with the right applications of AI technology. Thus, while venturing into AI intervention for watershed outcomes, the top priority of an organization will be to resolve this dilemma for precise identification of the right problems.

These areas may even include crucial bottlenecks in the business process, AI interventions for which, would lead to not just incremental benefits, but cutting-edge value creation, for a giant leap in an all-round performance. The name of the game is to start selectively with the right problems, evaluate the upshots of AI use, before scaling up and adding new areas. Ongoing value creation of such nature can’t be achieved just by one-time digital transformation, sans imbibing other disruptive technologies, proactively.

This, in my view, has to happen and is practically unavoidable, primarily driven by two key factors, as below:

The first one was the focal point of the ‘2018 Digital Savvy HCP Survey Report of Indegene.’ It found, the highest jump of digital adoption by healthcare practitioners (HCPs) was seen in 2018, compared to its similar surveys done from 2015 to 2017, signaling physicians’ fast-growing digital preference, as we move on.

The second one comes from an important ‘consumer behavioral perspective.’ and is specially in India. According to a report by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) – with 451 million monthly active internet users at the end of financial year 2019, India is now second only to China in terms of internet users. More, importantly, the digital savvy customers are also using other disruptive technologies, mostly smartphone based.

Thus, disruptive digital transformation in pharma domains, including sales and marketing, is a necessary basic step. It will help companies being all-time ready to imbibe other leading-edge technologies, such as AI, for giant leaps to higher growth trajectories.

By: Tapan J. Ray

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.

 

 

Visible, The Green Shoots of Digital Transformation in Pharma

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Currently, one gets a mixed feeling about the progress of digital transformation in the pharma industry. This is despite various reports confirming that a number of major initiatives in this field have been taken, especially by Big Pharma, globally. Moreover, these are primarily driven by the company CEOs, as it should be, and adequately backed by heavy investments.

Another recent trend can’t also be wished away, as corporate C-suites find a new breed of leadership – Chief Digital Officers (CDO) as occupants. It has already happened in several top pharma companies. Alongside, one can spot in this milieu, a plethora of private ‘digital trainers’ – wearing interesting titles and offering courses of many types, especially for pharma line managers.

On the flip side, many experts feel that ‘digital transformation of business’ is currently more a buzz in the drug industry than reality. These are, apparently, piecemeal attempts of converting analogue formats to digital, in a number of functional areas to improve operational efficiency of the same process.

Thus, it’s time to go for a reality-check at the ground zero, to ascertain the overall progress of the industry in this area, at least, in the last five years. While doing so, in this article, I shall try to hear the views of the top company CDOs on the nature of the challenge, alongside examine some credible research findings. Let me begin this discussion by looking at where exactly does the pharma industry stand today in this space, as compared to other industries.

A fact-check:

That many players in the drug industry, continue to have no clear digital vision and strategy, was established in the ‘Harvey Nash/KPMG CIO Survey 2018.’ This survey is claimed to be the largest on IT leadership in the world, with almost 4,000 participants across 84 countries, representing over USD 300 bn of IT budget spend.

The report provides a snapshot of the pharma industry in several areas, particularly where the industry’s responses differed significantly from those across other industries. As I go along with my submission, I shall fact-check and quote from this data. Let’s find below the industry response to the following two key questions:

A.‘Does your organization have a clear digital business vision and strategy?’

Industry

Yes (enterprise-wide)

%

Yes (Within business units)                      %

No

%
Pharma

23

28

49
All industries

32

27

41

The second question is even more specific:

B.‘Does your organization have a Chief Digital Officer or someone serving in that capacity?’

Industry

Dedicated CDO

%

Someone else in that role                            %

No

 %
Pharma

4

37

59
All others

11

39

50

That said, let me also acknowledge, enough evidences suggest that a sort of ‘digital warming-up’ has commenced in the industry for some time now.

‘Digital warming-up’ has commenced:

That the process has just begun, was captured in several reports. Let me illustrate the point, citing an example of the article, titled ‘Marketing outside the box’, published in the Pharma Times Magazine of May 2017.

Considering blistering pace of progress and rapid adaptation of digital technology in businesses, it is interesting that a couple of years ago, the above article highlighted exactly what many would articulate even today. The author noted: ‘Think pharmaceutical marketing these days and the buzz words digital, consumer engagement, multichannel, and closed-loop all come to mind.’ Focusing on the possibility to make it happen, sooner, the paper added, ‘There is now a dizzying array of tools, technologies and tactics that can be combined in various permutations to create marketing campaigns unheard of a mere five to 10 years ago.’  Thus, the ‘digital warming-up’ notwithstanding, the key question, I reckon, is, about two years down the line, how many drug companies have started maintaining an enterprise-wide digital business strategy?

A soft target – for rationalization:

To rationalize the leisurely progress of this key initiative, one may possibly choose the soft target and say,drug companies being a part of a highly regulated and tradition-bound industry, are late to fathom the indispensability of digital transformation of business. But this justification is open to many probing questions. One such counter-query could be – in that case, why many constituents of as stringently regulated industry, if not more, – financial services business, including banking, are galloping ahead with digitization?

Even if, the above rationalization is accepted at its face value, the other question won’t also be too easy to answer: Why digitization is not gaining momentum in the pharma industry, as much as it should, particularly as compared to other highly regulated industries? Such probes understandably may not attract too many affirmative answers. However, the crux of this issue was reported in the headline of Fierce Pharma on June 25, 2019 – ‘Pharma’s got its chief digital officers. Now let’s see the results.’

In pursuit of holistic outcomes with digitization:

The August 2015 paper of McKinsey, titled ‘The road to digital success in pharma’, also acknowledged, just as other related one, the drug industry can play a pivotal role in the digital transformation of healthcare – changing lives of many. While pointing out, capturing this opportunity requires identifying the right initiatives, the article cautioned the industry, it needs to run harder ‘to keep pace with changes brought about by digital technology.’

There are indications that some top pharma decision makers have also realized that this change has to happen, sooner – assigning top organizational priority, and demanding sharp focus of all. As I wrote in my article of October 29, 2018, several companies have created a brand-new C-Suite position, to ‘lead the company’s digital efforts across research, discovery and business processes.’

The initiative intensified in the last two years:

According to May 13, 2019 edition of Biopharma Dive, seven of the nearly thirty pharma and biotech companies valued at more than USD 10 billion has named a Chief Digital or Information Officer (CDD/CIO) on their executive committee. Such placements facilitate greater influence for organization-wide changes and signal that they are taking the potential of digital technologies seriously to transform their respective business models.

Interestingly, six of those individuals were appointed to top management within the last two years. This shift comes, as tech companies like Amazon and Apple inch further into medicine, in a different form, though. Taking a cue from this emerging trend, some pharma majors are also merging research and development of new medicines with digital technology and big data. Thus, even CDO responsibilities are going through a curious metamorphosis.

Is CDO position a temporary one?

This question is aptly answered in the 2019 Report on the study of CDOs conducted byStrategy &, PwC’s strategy consulting group. The paper finds, the elevation of CDO at the Corporate Executive Committee or the Board level, ‘reflects the growing recognition that the digital transformation agenda now has strategic importance to most organizations, and that, unless it is driven from the top of the enterprise, it will not have the required momentum to drive business change.’ Overall in business: ‘More than half (54 percent) of CDOs have board-level status today, up from 40 percent in 2016’, the report highlights.

Although, it is construed as a general industry trend today, the report however, captures a clear dissonance. It found that leaders at many companies believe that putting a single person in charge of digital transformation may not be the best approach, as it is an intrinsic strategic priority, across the whole business, where agility becomes critical for survival. Thus, the researchers felt, as digital transformation becomes part of the core business, the next step will possibly be for the CDO to disappear. When it happens, digital transformation will become the responsibility of every member of the executive team of the organization.

Be that as it may, we shall cross that bridge when we come to it. At present,the basic groundswell for digital transformation of the entire business, is created from the C-Suite of the CDO. Thus, let us dwell on the scope of CDO in a pharma company.

Current scope of CDO in a pharma business:

Let me illustrate this point by quoting from the Press Release of Sanofi, dated February 12, 2019, appointing their CDO. It said, the CDO will be responsible for enhancing Sanofi’s strategy to integrate digital technologies and medical science to ultimately improve patient outcomes. His mandate will include scaling up Sanofi’s ongoing portfolio of digital initiatives by developing broad external partnerships, building out internal infrastructures, and exploring new business opportunities for the company in the digital space.

Thus, the role of a CDO is primarily focusing on both - developing a digital health strategy and improve internal capabilities, to effectively use new technologies and advanced analytics to deliver the deliverables, more effectively. As many would know, last year, both Pfizer and Merck announced appointments of CDOs for the first time in the company. In 2017, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) also created similar C-Suite positions.

Now, CDOs will need to prove their value:

Yes. That’s exactly what the Sanofi CDO said in the above Fierce Pharmaarticle – appeared on June 25, 2019. He was forthright in admitting, after a few years, pharma and biotech companies would be ‘kind of pressuring’ CDOs to ask, ‘Well, what have you really achieved? And show me the results. Have you made us more efficient? Have you transformed the way we work? Have you created new business? Have you really given us new tools, new technologies, new drugs which are digitally enhanced? And show me where they are.’

Hence, the pace of digital transformation of companies needs to be much faster now than ever before.

The current status of digitization in pharma:

Since, proof of the pudding is in the eating, let’s get a feel of the company employees in this area from their response to the query from the same ‘Harvey Nash/KPMG CIO Survey 2018.’:

‘Overall, how effective has your organization been in using digital technologies to advance its business strategy?’ 

Industry

Very effective          %

Moderately effective  %

Not/Slightly effective %
Pharma

17

37

36
All others

22

42

46

The above details may not reflect a great progress for the pharma industry in digital transformation. Nevertheless, this space doesn’t remain barren either, not any more. Some signs of progress – some green shoots, I reckon, are indeed discernable.

Conclusion:

As I see it, the need for digital transformation is an existential issue for the pharma industry. No one can afford to let this initiative die. In any case, the technological wave of such dimension, power and relevance for all, will always prevail – getting stronger – as the days pass by.

That said, there isn’t much doubt, either, that many drug companies are finding it challenging to keep pace with the rapid progress of technology, where obsolescence is also equally fast. Some are also facing tough barriers to scale up digital transformation across the organization. The rest seems to be not very sure how and where to start it from.

On the other hand, as I also wrote in my article in this blog on April 08, 2019, fueled by, among others, Internet of Things, the health care environment, including in India, is moving towards a ‘connected healthcare’ regime. This disruptive change will demand the best value offerings from each brand for better patient outcomes.

The good news is, at least, some green shoots of digital transformation in the pharma space are certainly coming up. But its pace needs to be considerably accelerated and now, creating an optimal groundswell – always being on the same page with customers – for path-breaking outcomes.

By: Tapan J. Ray   

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.