ExecutiveChronicles.com | What’s New in Pharmaceutical Sciences? | The pharmaceutical sciences are undergoing a significant transformation.
The sector, which has been sluggish to adopt technology in the past, is now changing. This is due to the development of many technologies.
Artificial intelligence, blockchain, additive manufacturing are among the most notable pharma industry trends.
Things such as investment and the growth of technology startups are encouraging innovation. Furthermore, increased inter-organizational partnerships and a favorable regulatory environment help towards this.
So, let’s now delve deeper into the current pharmaceutical trends.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Artificial intelligence (AI) is used to speed up drug research and development. Machine learning is an aspect of this that is important.
Startups are experimenting with the use of these technologies. They are doing so to address many difficulties in the pharmaceutical sector. These can include manufacturing process automation and optimization, for example. Plus, organizations can use AI to develop successful marketing and post-launch tactics.
Patient identification is critical in the medication discovery and development process. And this is especially true when it comes to clinical trials. AI makes the process of identifying eligibility criteria and including patients easier. Plus, it makes the cohort identification process faster and less expensive.
Big Data and Analytics
High-performance tech helps to find value in data during drug research and development.
Pharmaceutical businesses are attempting to offer up their sensitive data to third parties. This makes data management a significant emphasis area. Pharmaceutical firms’ historical and real-time data are becoming essential assets. Specialists use it for diagnostic, predictive, prescriptive, and descriptive analytics. And, this is all thanks to advances in analytical tools.
Furthermore, these analytics techniques are used to a wide range of medical data. This data can include medical imaging and hospital data, to name a couple of examples.
Flexible and More Efficient Production
The pharmaceutical industry is experimenting with innovative manufacturing methods. One example of this is the use of small batches for precision medicine. And this is all spurred on by shifting market dynamics.
Single-use technology is gaining popularity because it lowers downtime and boosts productivity. The support from due diligence consulting firms also helps assure that the required clinical trials are in place to produce safer products for consumers. It does this by removing tedious tasks like validation between different manufacturing stages.
There is a growing focus on biopharmaceuticals. This has led to the development of new types of continuous manufacturing techniques. Continuous manufacturing reduces energy consumption. It also increases productivity and reduces waste, besides reducing downtime.
Precision Medicine
Precision medicine is about treating each patient as an individual.
New insights into how the human body responds to medications are gained. This is thanks to advances in omic and data analysis. Personalized medicine is now becoming a reality. This is partly because of modern manufacturing processes such as additive manufacturing.
Drug exposure models are used to analyze complex features in medications.
These models help establish the appropriate dosage based on:
- Age
- Sex
- Comorbidities
And, of course, these models can determine other clinical data types. Roivant Sciences is a great example of a company that uses technology to produce new drugs and precision medicine.
Blockchain
The pharmaceutical business benefits significantly from blockchain technology. This is at every level of drug development and distribution. Data is sensitive in nature. So, stakeholders in the pharmaceutical sector are discreet about their information.
Blockchain technology is also being investigated to combat counterfeit and inferior products. These products can infiltrate the pharmaceutical supply chain every year. The result is thousands of patient deaths every year.
Blockchain is a viable tool for tracking and safeguarding the pharma transaction ecosystem. This is due to the digitization of transactions.
Additive Manufacturing
Pharmaceutical companies are rethinking their manufacturing processes. Their reasoning is to better produce precision medicine.
A lot of work is being done to develop powerful 3D printers that can manufacture tissues or cells.
3D printing of human tissues benefits processes such as:
- Drug discovery
- Organ engineering
- Regenerative medicine
This enables the creation of medical formulations that are age or physiology-dependent. Plus, labs can create precision tablets.
Bioprinters also aid in the advancement of bio-inks, tissue engineering, and microfluidics research.
Real-World Data
Real-world data (RWD) is at the forefront of pharmacy innovations.
RWD contains information about a patient’s health, treatment information, and health reports. The pharmaceutical business is research-intensive in nature. Thus, it must ensure that the data it has is useful. It’s also crucial that the data is accurate.
Big pharma is being restructured by the availability of real-world data. This is continually provided by the Internet of Things (IoT), sensors, and wearables.
Extended Reality (XR)
Visualizations have never been more accessible. This is thanks to virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR), and augmented reality (AR). Pharmaceutical entrepreneurs are investigating the potential of these technologies. They do this in the research and manufacturing of pharmaceuticals.
Extended reality solutions allow research teams to engage in data-rich interaction. Plus, they also provide meaningful real-time location-agonistic possibilities. Human enhancement in medicine is becoming a reality. This is because of extended reality wearables and solutions developed by startups.
Digital Therapeutics
There are new ways to deal with physical, mental, and behavioral disorders. Digital therapeutics use software to deliver evidence-based therapeutic interventions.
These non-pharmaceutical, technology-based solutions can be utilized alone. Or, you can use them in conjunction with drugs, devices, or therapies. So, people can have more influence over their health because of digital treatments.
Curative Therapies
In illness treatment, there is a paradigm shift occurring. The pharma industry is moving from disease management to disease cure.
Curative technologies like cell and gene therapies revolutionize how we treat chronic diseases. They also help with difficult-to-treat ailments by removing the need for long-term care.
Gene therapy involves inserting genetic material into cells. The reason is to compensate for defective genes or produce a good protein. The most frequent vectors for gene therapy are genetically modified viruses.
Lower Demand for Prescription Medicine
Many low and middle-income families cannot afford expensive medicine. Healthcare systems and low-cost technology, on the other hand, are becoming more widely available.
To meet demand, pharmaceutical businesses must become more cost-conscious and focus on lowering prices. Until then, many patients are likely to rely on beyond-the-pill services.
The Beyond-The-Pill Approach
Pharma businesses now have more resources than ever before to solve health concerns. Companies will rely on the latest pharmaceutical advancements to produce new medical solutions. This is due to how appealing high-tech is to both customers and investors.
These items are referred to as beyond-the-pill services by experts. They take the shape of digital pills, wearable trackers, sensors, and apps that offer real-time data and make therapy more enjoyable.
Growth of Digital Marketing
Event cancellations are a problem for businesses all over the world. Pharma businesses are unable to demonstrate new products and services. This is due to the rapid proliferation of COVID-19. That is, assuming they don’t come up with another way to organize these activities.
So, what is the best way for enterprises to reach out to new businesses and investors during a lockdown?
It’s actually quite simple. In these times pandemic, event streaming will become one of the new trends in drug marketing.
Long before 2020, many pharmaceutical companies struggled with digital marketing. Yet, now these organizations cannot afford to be without a robust online presence in 2021. As a result, digital marketing is expected to become one of the most important upward trends in the pharmaceutical business.
NLP Developments
Natural language processing (NLP) did not operate well in the past. Yet, now it has experienced a major transformation in the last few years.
It has progressed faster than any other artificial intelligence subfield. You can find NLP in your email in the form of words and phrase predictions. It also supports smart assistants, personalized search results, and reliable online translations.
Pharmaceutical companies all over the world have begun to use NLP. They use it to extract insights from unstructured medical data. In clinical trials, using NLP to analyze a dataset can help discover doctors-influencers. As well, it can solve the overarching challenge of timely patient recruitment.
New doctors who have never participated in a clinical study can be found and invited to use NLP.
NLP data enable contract research organizations (CROs) to expand their market penetration. And they can do this while also reducing marketing expenses by better allocating their resources.
ML for Adverse Event Reports
Adverse event reports are fragmented and preserved in several formats. Furthermore, the number of reported adverse events is increasing every day. This is making it more challenging to assess and process all of them and thus determine the most essential.
Machine learning (ML) can completely disrupt the current state of adverse event analysis. Statistical approaches can accurately confirm unfortunate occurrences while excluding those caused by noise.
Deep learning automates previously manual and inconvenient processes. It gives complete insights about tested medicine to CROs and sponsors.
Developments in the Pharmaceutical Sciences
Now you should feel more up-to-date with what’s going on in pharmaceutical sciences. There were many other news-worthy developments to discuss. But, we decided to pinpoint some of the pharmacy innovations which we see as critical.
So, thanks for stopping by. And don’t forget to check out our blog for more informative and interesting reads. All the best!
