Big Pharma taking steps towards fully digital businesses
pharmafile | December 3, 2015 | News story | Medical Communications | Accenture, digital pharma, innovation
Pharma companies can tap into $100 billion of revenue from being ‘digital transformers’, and not just ‘digital followers’, a leading life science industry analysts says.
Accenture has previously warned that pharma companies needed to begin investing time and money on digitising their business and their business model, or risk losing out to new tech players in the industry.
Their latest report, the Accenture Life Sciences Tech Vision Report surveyed more than 100 senior pharma executives to determine how major technology trends are shaping the life sciences industry.
The report found that, in order to capture the value expected in the life sciences market over the next five years – expected to be more than $100 billion in the US alone – companies must embrace digital holistically to engage with patients and improve quality of life.
It found that 9 out of 10 life sciences respondents believe that “industry boundaries will dramatically blur as platforms reshape industries into interconnected ecosystems”, and that 60% plan to engage with new digital partners in the industry in the next two years.
Pharmafocus spoke to Brags Srinivasan, global managing director of Accenture Life Sciences, who urged companies to make sure they build strategies to survive in the digital economy.
“I feel that Big Pharma is taking some steps towards not just digitising their business – it’s no more about building a bunch of websites and calling yourself ‘digital’ – but completely restructuring their business so that you can respond to customer’s needs and drive them towards healthier lives eventually.
“This change is happening right across every industry. What makes it different in the life sciences industry is because we are talking about people’s lives. Being a pharma guy and maybe a little biased, I think we have to have outcomes that are clearer and more critical than other industries, because we are talking about people’s lives.”
Srinivasan cited the digital collaborations led by pharma companies including Novartis, Boehringer Ingelheim and Roche – with Qualcomm, Wellpoint and 23andMe respectively – as examples of companies that are innovating in this area, although he says “it’s not clear where the groundswell of innovation is that will lead to the next big disruption.”
“Pharma companies are trying to come up with a unique digital business model that they can differentiate their products with. A lot of them are taking steps in the right direction, but the major disruption that has happened in other industries, like the travel industry, has not yet happened in the pharma industry.
“My boss constantly asks me: ‘What’s the Tesla, or the Uber, of the pharma industry?’ And I don’t have an answer for that. Will it come through scientific discoveries, will it be the cure for cancer or Parkinson’s, or solving how to provide affordable healthcare for everyone in the world, or will it come through the digital ecosystems that we have talked about? I’m not sure.”
And Srinivasan has one piece of advice for pharma companies still in the digital transition. “Don’t be in denial about the digital revolution that’s happening around you. Most companies were a little late to catch on to digital revolution – there was a general feeling that ‘we sell medicines, not hotel rooms or cabs, so this whole revolution is really not for us’.
“I think once they acknowledge that – and a significant change over the last 12-18 months is that most of them have – it’s about identifying the critical things they are doing right now that has the potential to open up to multiple other channels, collaborating with other companies, then seeing what their differentiators are and asking if they are invested enough in those.”
Lilian Anekwe
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