Top Trends 2023 - Pharmaceutical Technology

By TechDogs Editorial Team

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Overview

We bet you’ve heard of Grey’s Anatomy, right? The superhit medical drama is among the longest-running TV series currently on air – and for good reason! The show is highly realistic in its depiction of the medical and pharmaceutical industry. It follows the lives of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and naturally, the patients, to show how advanced medicine and healthcare are in the modern age. Yet, it also shows how reliant the medicinal industry is on the pharma sector to develop better drugs and treatments. We mean, without the right medicines, there is not much doctors can do, right?

Moreover, the pharmaceutical industry has been in focus over the past two years for obvious reasons. The entire industry had to ramp up production and to do that, they adopted and integrated the latest technologies. From cloud computing to blockchain, there’s a lot still happening in the pharma industry at the moment. To help you keep up with it, we present the top 5 Pharmaceutical Technology Trends you need to know in 2023!

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted the pharmaceutical industry to pivot almost overnight to answer the need for better medicines and drugs. This transition meant streamlining operations and supply chains, reducing operational overhead and reducing the complexity of processes. Although it has been over two years since the onset of the pandemic, the transformation is still ongoing in the pharma industry. While the sector has adapted to the new normal, the demand to create improved drugs, discover new treatments and manufacture medicines at a faster rate is still there.

In fact, a report by the IQVIA Institute predicts that the valuation of the pharmaceutical industry is expected to exceed 1.5 trillion dollars in 2023 due to its exponential progress, thanks to the momentum created by the pandemic. Last year we saw trends such as pharmacovigilance, Real-World Evidence and improved cybersecurity in the pharma industry. This year, pharma experts are expected to keep an eye out for technologies that can enhance the productivity and resilience of the pharma industry. Well, here are the top 5 Pharmaceutical Technology Trends of 2023 you need to know!

Trend 1: Cloud Will Be Necessary For Improved Analytics

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We're sure you know that every industry is looking to move to the cloud – the pharmaceutical industry is no different. In 2023, more pharma businesses will set up cloud infrastructures that will enable them to collaborate on the move and be more efficient.

The cloud provides a cost-effective and secure way for pharma professionals to perform analytics. Soon, major players in the industry will rely on this technology to provide secure and centralized access to complex drug data associated with clinical trials. Anyone with a computer will be able to work remotely, allowing pharmaceutical companies to partner with multiple stakeholders for greater effectiveness.

According to a survey by GlobalData, mentions of "cloud computing" in the filings of pharmaceutical companies increased sharply by 146% since 2016. Moreover, the percentage of pharma businesses that have mentioned "cloud computing" at least once in their filings last year was 40%, compared to a meager 16% in 2016. As the adoption of the cloud increases in the pharmaceutical sector due to its scalability and data security, the trend will continue well into 2023.

TechDogs’ Opinion: We are sure that cloud computing will enable the pharmaceutical community to innovate rapidly and manage clinical data easily which will lead to delivering new drugs to the market much faster. Working on the cloud will also offer secure storage for the sizable, sensitive data that pharma companies work with. Another reason we expect pharma companies to move to the cloud is to comply with data integrity and privacy regulations. We believe that pharma players that invest in cloud technology will be better prepared for the future and better equipped to survive any unforeseen disruptions. #MoveToTheCloud

Trend 2: eLearning Will Enable Digital Training For Pharma Professionals

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In a megatrend, edtech and pharma tech came together when online training for pharma professionals became necessary during the pandemic when in-person training was not feasible. However, this trend will continue to grow as it proved to be very profitable to train pharmacists, salespeople and medical professionals from anywhere and at any time. In 2023, we expect eLearning to be widely utilized to educate and inform new employees across pharma verticals.

The most valuable selling point of eLearning is that it allows for customization based on each learner’s level. Pharmaceutical businesses will invest in LMS (Learning Management Systems) to deliver eLearning for compliance learning, onboarding, upskilling, product training, sales training, etc. Moreover, this will help create a digital-friendly workforce adept with technologies such as electronic signatures, online pharmaceutical portals and electronic document verification.

Using digital learning platforms for training is also highly cost-effective and convenient, as personnel can be trained at any time. Given that the shelf life of most patents in the pharma industry is less than five years, there are frequent releases of new drugs into the market. This makes it necessary to impart training to new joiners which eLearning can do en masse.

TechDogs' Opinion: While eLearning has proved to be a boon to several industries, we believe it has a significant benefit for pharma businesses. Since most pharmaceutical businesses hire freelancers who can easily adapt their schedules to the requirements of the companies, there is a constant need to update them on the latest drugs, sales processes, business policies, etc. We think eLearning will be an inexpensive solution to train and inform freelance employees who are increasingly being employed in the pharma industry. We believe eLearning tools will soon become a prerequisite in the pharma sector to train personnel on new drug launches, sales strategies, etc. #eLearningWillRule

Trend 3: Blockchain Will Provide Supply Chain Security For The Pharma Sector

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We’re sure you have come across the term “blockchain” – yet do you know the pharma industry will soon invest in this technology? Blockchain will help the pharma industry streamline drug production and distribution across global supply chains in 2023. Here’s how!

Thanks to its decentralized nature, blockchain-based delivery systems will prevent expired, outdated or low-quality medicines from reaching the consumer as it provides real-time supply chain tracking. Additionally, in 2023, pharma leaders will explore blockchain applications to innovate in areas such as counterfeit drug prevention, drug distribution, supply chain tracking and drug security. In fact, pharma giants such as Pfizer, Amgen and Sanofi are streamlining the process of drug development and testing using blockchain as they believe that securing and storing clinical data on blockchain ledgers will help accelerate the R&D process while reducing costs.

Furthermore, the financial aspect of blockchain will secure transactions between healthcare clinics, hospitals, medical regulators and other pharma stakeholders. Blockchain will also provide robust data protection, transparency and real-time verifiability across globally dispersed teams to verify drug development in independent environments. This will certainly improve clinical data security as well as the testing, development and delivery of drugs.

TechDogs’ Opinion: We are sure that pharmaceutical companies will embrace blockchain soon to increase supply chain visibility, ensure data compliance and improve drug traceability while simplifying medical transactions. Furthermore, it will reduce issues such as the lack of transparency and other challenges in tracking supplies and shipments that currently plague the traditional pharmaceutical supply chain. We expect this emerging technological trend to offer value in the pharmaceutical supply chain by enabling decentralized data recording, leading to increased efficiency in the supply chain. We expect that at some point, every shipment of drugs will be uniquely identified and recorded on the blockchain, thus removing the unnecessary intermediaries in existing supply chains. #BlockchainForBetterSupplyChain

Trend 4: Natural Language Processing (NLP) Will Enable Precision Medicine

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Have you ever wondered why they don’t make medicines in roast beef flavor? Well, that’s because precision medicine is still in the works and 2023 will be its year to shine! Precision medicine seeks to develop drugs that are based on a deeper understanding of the patient’s biology, physiology and preferences. In 2023, AI-based Natural Language Processing will boost pharmacists’ ability to offer precision medicine.

The purpose of precision medicine (an arena of personalized medicine) is to ensure drugs and medicines provided to a patient are tailored for optimal effectiveness. While most of the patient information is accessible in structured formats from electronic medical records, there is valuable unstructured information in the form of physician notes, referral forms, medical charts, etc. NLP makes this data accessible and reduces the time required to manually analyze and transcribe it. NLP will help extract unstructured medical data, leading to quicker and more accurate diagnoses for precision medicine.

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a branch of AI that enables computers to “read” and understand human text. Hence, NLP will play a critical role in precision medicine, providing pharmaceutical companies with access to unstructured insights and also a contextual understanding of the data.

TechDogs' Opinion: Pharmaceutical professionals face the challenge of extracting critical insights that lie in manual, unstructured data in the form of prescriptions and admission forms. This is where we believe NLP will be used to transform unstructured data into quickly accessible medical insights to support decision-making. Moreover, precision medicine is required for patients who do not respond to traditional treatment and have unique healthcare needs. We expect NLP assistants will understand and identify the phenotypes of patients by combining insights from structured and unstructured data. This will lead to improved precision medicine approaches for rare diseases, oncology and cardiology drugs soon. #EvenPharmaWillBePersonalized

Trend 5: Big Data Will Enable Innovations And Breakthroughs

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One of the greatest challenges across the pharma industry is high-throughput data. Proper testing and analysis of R&D (research and development) insights require systems that can keep up with the vast volume of incoming data. Hence, in 2023, we expect pharma businesses to maintain or increase investments in Big Data management.

Robust Big Data management will help pharmaceutical companies leverage predictive, prescriptive and diagnostic analytics that drive their drug discoveries and developments. Yet roughly three-quarters (74%) of pharma businesses have outsourced their data management strategies in 2021. This year, however, the focus will shift to internal data management approaches that will help pharma professionals innovate with better access to vast volumes of medical data. While on-demand services will remain important, pharma businesses are growing more wary of the need for quick access to medical data.

Roughly 38% of pharmaceutical industry experts expect Big Data to have the greatest impact on the industry this year. Hence, developing a strong infrastructure using cloud technology (Trend 1) will enable pharma businesses to scale the storage and usage of medical data. Further, the collection of real-world data (RWD) and real-world evidence (RWE) has become inevitable in drug trials and designs, which cannot scale unless businesses have Big Data capabilities. Hence, the pharma industry as a whole will focus on improved data management strategies to support the burgeoning stream of data.

TechDogs' Opinion: With the increase in drug testing and development, it will be unavoidable for pharma companies to invest in Big Data technologies. Yet, we believe that simply being able to scale the data volume won't be enough. In conjunction with Big Data management, pharma businesses should integrate sophisticated Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning tools to analyze the data. This will enable them to make informed decisions for site identification, study progression and risk management. We expect that developing automated Big Data approaches will help pharma businesses in quicker information processing, no matter the size of the data, leading to enhanced insights and quicker decision-making for drug development.

Summing It Up

Innovation and technological development will remain key in the pharma industry in 2023. After all, they are the backbone of the medical sector and public healthcare. Pharma businesses are expected to focus on integrating cloud, Big Data management and blockchain, while NLP will enhance precision medicine approaches. Also, eLearning will remain critical for pharma businesses this year. We hope you know all about the latest trends in Pharmaceutical Technology – yes, you may go back to watching Grey’s Anatomy now!

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Pharma Tech Pharmaceutical Technology Pharmaceutical Technology Trends 2023 Cloud Technology Blockchain eLearning NLP For Precision Medicine Big Data Management

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