Five Dimensions of Digital Technology Driving Transformation in the Pharmaceutical Industry

Although digital technology has been widely adopted across various industries, its application in the healthcare sector started relatively late. The reasons are easy to understand: the healthcare industry is subject to stringent regulations, involves multiple key stakeholders, and is characterized by a traditional culture of slow adoption, which contrasts with the high reliance on digital technologies seen in other sectors. However, pharmaceutical companies within the healthcare industry are an exception. Positioned between patients, physicians, and payers, they are able to derive the greatest benefits from a broad range of digital technologies.

The impact of digital technology on the pharmaceutical industry primarily stems from five aspects:

Digital technology can transform the way clinical trials are conducted. Online communities are becoming an increasingly important channel for patient recruitment in clinical trials. Furthermore, by leveraging interaction data collected from communications with vendors, social media offers pharmaceutical companies significant opportunities to engage with multiple stakeholders across the healthcare industry. A typical example is research analyzing conversations about cancer among physicians on Twitter. Another study involved collecting and analyzing data from public online discussions regarding alternative cancer therapies.

As is customary, pharmaceutical prescribers and pharmaceutical companies have primarily communicated through office visits (both scheduled and unscheduled). Regulations concerning the Physician Payments Sunshine Act and hospital policies now severely restrict such interactions.

In response to this situation, RIMEDIO, an e-commerce social network focused on medical affairs, aims to disrupt the current landscape and redesign the pharmaceutical sales model using new technologies. It has created a system that allows prescribing physicians to decide how and when to interact with pharmaceutical companies. Through this system, pharmaceutical companies benefit from collaborating with agents who represent products from multiple companies, thereby reducing overhead costs. Meanwhile, the system facilitates engagements between pharmaceutical companies and prescribing physicians, which, from the physicians’ perspective, represents a shift from a passive to a proactive role.

Information for pharmaceutical companies is primarily derived from market research, clinical trials, post-marketing registration studies (Phase IV trials), and prescription data. After a drug enters the market, any information on adverse events comes from voluntary reports by prescribing physicians or patients.

To address these limitations, truly valuable insights can be obtained by integrating discrete datasets that determine patient outcomes (including patient safety indicators) from previously siloed sources. Today’s digital technologies can accurately and in real time identify previously unrecognized data sources from diverse origins, such as electronic health record vendors, patient-facing mobile applications, or clinical registries. Healthcare analytics companies like Pulse Infoframe enable clinicians to easily share data with patients and other stakeholders through a secure, web-based application.

In the United States, non-adherence to medication regimens results in approximately $105 billion being spent on avoidable treatments. According to a recent Deloitte report on medication adherence, 54% of patients taking prescription medications stated that they are willing to use digital tools and mobile technologies to remind them to take their medications. However, currently only 13% of prescription medication users are utilizing such tools. The report points out that the reasons for this discrepancy are multifaceted, including factors such as the ease of use of digital tools, cost, user experience comfort, and physician recommendations.

Despite ongoing debates over the financial pros and cons of retail medical clinics, their advantages in terms of convenience and reliability are undeniable. Moreover, their steadily growing consumer base positions them as strong competitors in the healthcare sector in the coming years. Digital tools related to medication adherence, patient education, and disease awareness could well originate from pharmacy-affiliated retail medical clinics.

The five categories of digital tools mentioned above may have a profound impact on the pharmaceutical industry and will continue to evolve in response to changing user and healthcare needs. Although still in the exploratory and experimental stages, VCBeat (WeChat: vcbeat) believes that these digital tools will gain increasing traction as patients and clinicians become more digitally aware.