Technology Trends in the Pharmaceutical Industry in 2023

Today technology permeates the core business of virtually all businesses, and the pharmaceutical industry is no exception. We summarize in this article the 5 main technology trends in the pharmaceutical market in 2023.

“Being able to leverage these and other technologies is a fundamental imperative for the pharmaceutical sector, and this means digitizing processes and optimizing digital journeys between us and doctors and patients” – Zappts Client from the Pharmaceutical Sector

Trend 1: IT as a Business Lever

There is a trend in the pharmaceutical industry, as in all other industries and markets in the world, of seeing the technology area as a cross-functional area to the business, increasingly less with a support, helpdesk view, and increasingly integrated with the areas of the entire company.

In the old view, information technology served only as a work infrastructure, and today it is increasingly integrated into the company’s business, often being part of the industry’s core business.

This can be evidenced both by the increase in the development and integration of systems and platforms in the pharmaceutical sector, as well as by the migration of professionals to the IT area.

Thus, the change of vision about the role of technology in pharmaceutical companies can be seen as a market trend, with an approach increasingly less focused on infrastructure and increasingly oriented towards the product and the real needs of stakeholders.

Trend 2: Integration of Platforms and Legacy Systems

On the one hand, the pharmaceutical industry already operates intelligently with the use of data for decision-making, today these data are distributed and fragmented across different worlds, and the platform vision tends to cause the fusion of such worlds, namely:

• Research world;
• Development world, which encompasses, in addition to product development, analytical research; 
• Manufacturing world, which will actually do the manufacturing, manage all data related to product quality, compliance; 
• Logistics world, the distribution of these products to distributors; 
• Sales world, which encompasses marketing, commercial and market positioning.

The fusion of these worlds is necessary so that we actually have all the data talking to each other.

This includes the connection between legacy systems, mainly but not only in the manufacturing area, so that all data can be operated under a single platform vision.

Thus, enabling greater connectivity, development of different applications, and new synergies between areas that were previously not possible.

This platform vision also tends to increase the business’s ability to generate insights for departments, not just for each specific world, but also for cross worlds, through a holistic vision.

In this way, we can increasingly use, for example, a trend in the pharmaceutical industry of validating products in phase I, II, and III, and then moving to manufacturing with all data accessible and that empower assertive decision-making.

Thus, integration between platforms generates value for the industry, with greater integration of manufacturing with logistics, logistics with sales, always generating an insights ecosystem that is much more powerful for the sector.

Furthermore, from a trends perspective, there is also preparation of the sector for open data challenges, where the industry is preparing for a moment when data tends to be shared in real time, without much prior processing by regulatory agencies and by other partners in the pharmaceutical industry chain — for example, for those who manufacture the pharmaceutical input —,  having this direct, automatic connection with those who purchase these IFAs (pharmaceutical active ingredients) .

Trend 3: Data Driven Decision – Data-driven Decisions and Artificial Intelligence

The trend is to have an increasingly greater conjunction of data available in the industry.

For example, for specific applications that support better sales force direction, or so that market intelligence can have increasingly more insights, today, broadly speaking, all industries buy market data and look at the same source — perhaps segmenting differently —, that is, they get this information from the same place.

However, as more data become available in this integration, it will be more possible for the industry to also seek other data sources that can feed market intelligence and, with this, it can translate into a better sales strategy and greater marketing gain.

Trend 4: Automation and Synergy

It is a trend in all businesses to increasingly automate processes that are manual, operational, and advancing, of course, to analysis and interpretation processes.

So, the first pillar of automation and synergy has to do with data manipulation, considering that the pharmaceutical industry traditionally needs — even for regulatory reasons —, to compile, store and report a lot of data.

So, we have a whole universe of automations that can be done in this manipulation, which even includes low-complexity statistical analyses, which are necessary for: quality assurance activities, validation, reports, annual product reviews, and so on for the CPV (Continued Process Verification).

Furthermore, all this automation and synergy permeates the GxP (good practices) and compliance environment, increasingly moving towards creating an automation that is adherent to these regulatory standards and good manufacturing practices.

Trend 5: Digitization of the Doctor-Patient Relationship

Today everything is digital, including the way we interact with our stakeholders. The development and strengthening of digital channels for the relationship with doctors and patients, for example, is one of the trends in the pharmaceutical industry.

Through the digitization of the relationship, the pharmaceutical sector is empowering the engagement of laboratories with patients and doctors, generating a unified and integrated experience across all of the company’s digital channels.

Furthermore, the optimization of digital touchpoints such as website, CRM channels and applications, among others, ensures competitiveness and differentials perceived by the entire productive chain of the pharmaceutical sector.

We know that the technological challenges of the pharmaceutical industry are not limited to these 5 topics, however we believe that optimizing these aspects can generate a great competitive advantage within the industry. We are constantly talking with players in this market and are always available to help the industry in its digital transformation challenges, especially regarding the digital and the experience of stakeholders in the pharmaceutical area. Want to chat with our pharma sector specialists? Contact us by clicking here!