Life Sciences:
trends for the
future

The Covid-19 pandemic turbo-charged the emerging trend of digital therapeutics, with practitioners and life sciences leaders increasingly aware of their potential to improve access to better, more personalized treatment for a wide range of conditions.

Digital therapeutics will surge in effectiveness and in market growth by combining AI and insights from behavioral science.

We expect that pharma and medical device companies will continue to evaluate, incubate, promote, and include digital therapeutics to improve efficacy of existing medicines and devices, increase access to patient data across the patient journey, and strengthen brand positioning.

The shift to virtual engagements driven by the pandemic has increased flexibility for healthcare sales professionals, freeing up their schedules by balancing in-person and remote interactions.

Digital tools lead to better insights and a continuous feedback loop that allow sales reps and healthcare providers to choose the most effective ways to interact with each other, although some providers still struggle with the learning curve inherent in new technologies.

We expect that companies that meet healthcare providers where, when, and how they want will have a tremendous competitive advantage — in large part because the digitalization of these interactions creates more touchpoints and more data.

Modern technologies including telemedicine, digital health tools, AI, and machine learning help researchers reach a wider clinical trial participant pool through cost-efficient virtual trials, gather data accurately, and generate richer insights.

A hybrid approach that combines both virtual and in-person clinical trials can deliver significant benefits but creates its own challenges, including compliance and potential difficulty interacting with researchers to address problems.

We expect that hybrid trials will bring beneficial medicines to patients more quickly and less expensively, through robust data governance, transparency, and participant connections that realize efficiency benefits while mitigating risks.

Intelligent manufacturing has arrived at the cusp of a new era, as technology advances begin to deliver smart answers to growing complexity.

Pharmaceutical manufacturing can be personalized, efficient, and dynamic.

We expect that a convergence of intelligent manufacturing and visionary leadership will unlock value for the entire sector.

Pharma companies strengthened supply chain resilience during the Covid-19 pandemic, but new technologies and threats demand continuing development to minimize vulnerabilities.

Pharma and healthcare firms are using digital tools such as AI, machine learning, and networked devices to gather data and generate insights from that data to build more responsive supply chains.

We expect the supply chains of the future will be capable of real-time, highly accurate demand sensing, process control, and risk mitigation, finally approaching the 30-year vision of carbon-free, lights-out supply chains.

Companies are shifting their perspective from treating data and clinical evidence as proprietary and private to joining more open and collaborative ecosystems, sharing to convert data into insights and evidence.

Researchers can use AI and other technologies to more effectively discover, access, and navigate data in the healthcare ecosystem.

We expect that data and evidence integration across the healthcare ecosystem will lead to transformative new products, drugs, and treatments, and will bring commercial success for more participants.