The world is changing at an ever-increasing pace. Shopping malls have been replaced with online shopping; traditional classrooms have given way to online classes and soon, driving your own car may seem like a nostalgic activity. Pharmaceutical Industry is no different. Pharmaceutical and life sciences companies are facing an upsurge of challenges as a part of what could be the New Health Economy.
The global pharmaceutical industry is said to have a relative growth over the next few years. Be on guard for the following pharmaceutical trends and set the right course for your strategies.
Patient Empowerment
Gone are the days when individuals relied on doctors for diagnosis. Due to the easily accessible information, patients today can learn about their health conditions online and obtain the necessary knowledge to be aware of the available treatments and choose the ones they prefer. Doctors have lost their power to influence this choice and thus pharma companies have to look for new and innovative ways to get their medications sold.
The patient-first business model helps to do just that. The pharma companies which succeed in patient engagement increases their chances of commercial and regulatory success as decisions are taken in accordance with the patient’s needs and results. For productive collaboration with patients, pharma companies are required to find better communication techniques and also invest in more effective data analytics. Although many patients are skeptical about sharing their personal information, an independent survey found that most people are willing to let pharma companies know about their medical activities if it leads to a better care.
Furthermore, Virtual reality is used to motivate consumers to be more active and compassionate. If used as a marketing tool, this can build empathy, enable training on medical devices and create detailed demos that illustrate the mechanism of action with extreme clarity and help facilitate a stronger bond between pharma companies and consumers.
Increase in Biosimilars
Biosimilar products are suspected to continue to have a significant impact on the pharmaceutical industry. Due to the increase in approval of biosimilars and their rapid introduction in the market, market conditions will have to evolve accordingly. This will not only provide patients with numerous treatment options but also have the ability to get drugs for serious disorders at a much cheaper cost than the original biologics. This is an opportunity for manufacturers specializing in generics and biosimilars to grow their business rapidly. It is said to be a very sizeable opportunity and if companies do it correctly, the probability of success is higher than the traditional pharmaceutical approach and the cost of development should be lower than novel drugs.
Precision Medication
Arbitrary costs of trial-and-error therapies and the increasing need for decreasing the cost of healthcare has inspired the transition of one-fits-all model to the outcome-based targeted therapies. Precision medicine eliminates the need for guesswork, variable diagnosis, and generalized treatment strategies. Thus far only a few cases exists which used genetic information to make a decision regarding a suitable treatment.
Currently, the drug development industry is heavily investing in precision medicine. Furthermore, scientific advancements in genomics field suggest that time and costs are no longer a hindrance for precision medicine. Increasing awareness about the human genome and its correlation with disease progression are expected to shift the current focus beyond oncology.
3-D Printed Drugs
3-D printing assures a future of drugs printed on demand with custom doses and the possibility that price may no longer be an obstacle. The first 3-D printed medicine that dissolves rapidly is used for the treatment of epilepsy. Small companies are deriving other solutions for creating drugs that can be metabolized faster and can be marketed more easily. Because of this entire pharma industry will have to be restructured within years, perhaps even months.
Digital Healthcare
The global healthcare industry has seen a transformation which has been driven by advances in biopharmaceutical, medical and surgical procedures and automation. The Digital Health applications in information and communication technologies aid to utilize the full potential of big data analytics and change the healthcare industry. Today, if the pharma companies are not thinking about how to integrate such programs and educational resources and not just use them as a tool to promote, they will be left behind.
The digitization of the patient, from the electronic health records to genome mapping allows for targeted treatment that is revolutionizing healthcare. The introduction of mobile health sensors and wearables offers a real-time insight into a patient’s progress. Furthermore, computers with the ability to easily analyze enormous amounts of data and scientific literature can assist pharma companies in the development of new drugs and improve the existing ones.
Counterfeit Drugs
Counterfeit Drugs are fake medicine. They can be either contaminated or contain the wrong or lack of active compound. Pharma companies are required to track the product ID from manufacturing process and trace its movement throughout the supply chain. These drugs are not just available via the black market, but are also accessible through legitimate pharmacies. Fake drugs are said to be more deadly than terrorism. An independent survey concluded that 200,000 people are killed on an average due to counterfeit drugs.
All of this concludes into the complexity of the supply chain of pharmaceuticals. With an increased dependence on outsourced manufacturers and third party logistics, the lack of clarity across the various components of the supply chain has never been so blurred. This together with the intrinsic demand unpredictability from anywhere in the world and the disparity of supply and demand makes an increasingly volatile value chain.
Revolutionary Factors Affecting Pharmaceutical Industry
