If necessity is the mother of invention, the life sciences industry is in luck. Tasked with delivering products and treatments that underpin healthcare provision around the world, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors are under pressure from every angle.
Among the hurdles these organizations must overcome, there are three central challenges. Widespread patent expirations have delivered a blow to profit margins, forcing industry giants to look beyond their existing stable of blockbuster drugs. Meanwhile, the cost of successfully bringing a new drug to market has spiralled to almost $2.6 billion. Compounding this, an ongoing battle to boost research and development productivity has led to a product development model that increasingly relies on outsourcing to smaller, more agile organizations. This means that lab technology must now support an externalized, virtualized way of working. The convergence of these challenges means firms must cut costs, modernize technology strategy, ramp up innovation and bring products to market more quickly.
Life sciences R&D in a connected world
Enter the Fourth Industrial Revolution: we are on the verge of “an era of automation, constant connectivity and accelerated change, in which the Internet of Things (IoT) meets the Smart Factory”, according to Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum. That may be a grand label for a new iteration of the digital age, but technology is without question more intimately woven through the fabric of society than ever before.
We live in an increasingly connected world, which will have a profound impact on the R&D operations of life sciences organizations. The last decade has seen most pharma and biotech research teams move away from paper-based processes, storing information electronically. As a result, firms are keeping more accurate audit trails and more efficiently retaining intellectual property (IP). The next decade will see this data become the heart of life sciences innovation and organizations’ greatest competitive advantage.
Externalization, data deluge and cyber threats
The average laboratory – where the magic happens – will be supported by a myriad of increasingly intelligent, predictive, connected technologies. Software will become more ‘social’, allowing researchers to comment and build on each other’s work in real-time, in the Cloud; analytics and data visualization tools will seamlessly link with lab instruments to automatically process vast streams of data, partially automating the identification of new drugs and treatments; robotics will supplement researchers by taking on time-consuming administrative jobs; and even basic tasks like inventory management will benefit from predictive technology that ensures a research team has the raw materials they need in the right place, at the right time.
‘Millennials’ are coming, too. Digital-natives will occupy a vast proportion of the workplace by 2025, bringing an unmatched thirst for a workplace that continually adopts these new technologies as the status quo. This generational shift is driving a similar step-change in consumer appetite for personalized healthcare, for example, supported by new technology. A willingness to implement new technologies will bring down costs in the pursuit of new drugs and treatments, but will also force the industry to re-evaluate how to shape and develop the skillsets of new talent entering the life sciences sector.
This approach will also bring new threats. For pharma and biotech firms where data is core IP, cybercrime is a growing concern. In an increasingly outsourced model relying on geographically distributed teams and collaboration, systems must be secure to mitigate for the risks of hacking and theft of IP. That’s without factoring in the additional security risks associated with devices a more connected, externalized approach. Or even the exponentially growing deluge of data those businesses must manage. And of course, in a sector where M&A and landmark ‘asset swap’ deals are currently rife, progress must be made on setting industry data standards.
Will new technologies keep pace with these emerging threats, and avoid creaking under the weight of such vast volumes of scientific research data? Time will tell. But for the industry’s key players we can be certain technology will play a pivotal role in the ability to deliver on two fronts: create shareholder value, and bring new products and treatments to market that change lives around the world.
About the author:
Scott Weiss, Ph.D., joined IDBS in 2004, and leverages over 25 years’ experience in pharmaceutical drug development, informatics and software development. He is responsible for product strategy at IDBS, and enjoys leading a talented team focused on enabling organizations to accelerate their R&D.
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