Challenges in adopting digital technology
 

Overall, we identified six main challenges facing the pharma industry in its ambition to become more patient-centric. Specifically:

• the traditional product-based pharma culture can be at odds with the move to a more agile and responsive patient-centric culture - engaging differently with patients requires collaboration and co-ordination among cross-functional teams
• regulatory uncertainty with regard to digital technology and patient centricity – despite some guidance the rapid pace of technological advancement is adding to the already complex regulatory landscape, creating uncertainty amongst pharma as to regulators’ expectations and requirements
• data safety and privacy in the face of the proliferation of medical apps and other digital technologies – in moving from randomised controlled trials and anonymised data collection, to collecting identifiable data as part of a more patient-centric approach, pharma needs to ensure the highest levels of data safety, privacy and user consent are maintained
• corporate reputation can undermine patient engagement with pharma – largely due to past publicity about excessive pricing and a lack of transparency, public confidence has been eroded, reducing patients’ willingness to engage with pharma
• attracting talent with the skills to support a patient-centric ecosystem – pharma’s traditional risk averse corporate culture and perceived lack of agility and ‘fail-forward mentality’ that normally governs entrepreneurial endeavour can impact recruitment and retention of digital skills
• low levels of health and digital literacy impacts patients’ ability to engage effectively – with between a third and a half of people having low health literacy, this can undermine patient engagement with mobile health technologies.

Strategies to improve patient centricity
 

We identify five strategies that pharma are adopting to respond to the above challenges and help ensure that the vision of patient centricity becomes a reality. These are:

• change corporate cultures and structures, based on shared values and cross-functional working to promote agility, foster innovation and attract and retain appropriate talent
• develop partnerships to support the deployment of digital technology, including patient portals and engagement platforms, to help deliver a more patient-centric experience
• automate processes supporting patient facing activities and optimise use of digital talent which can benefit clinical trial management drug launch monitoring, and marketing content approval. The use of digital hubs can optimise deployment of digital talent
• create new contracting and pricing models, underpinned by patient information and insights, and generated through the use of digital health technology and big data analytics
• build collaborative relationships with patients, payers, healthcare professionals and regulators to improve health and digital literacy, and predict and manage new risks, including data security and privacy risks.

Future enablers of patient centricity
 

Looking to the future, pharma’s adoption of patient engagement strategies is inextricably linked to its digital technology-enabled transition to ‘wraparound’ solutions and a focus on improved healthcare outcomes. While “beyond-the-pill” or “around-the-pill” services have been talked about for some time, they are finally gaining traction. New disruptive technologies, partnerships and ideas include:

• embed blockchain technology to improve efficiency, safety and traceability
• adopt gamification to enhance patient engagement, health literacy and medication adherence
• use 3D printing to transform all stages of the pharma value chain
• optimise the potential of the connected patient to develop new outcome-based propositions
• make patients true partners in managing their own healthcare
• utilise non-traditional players’ experience of disruptive technologies and customer engagement
• adoption of distributed research networks and web-enabled virtual trials.

These technologies, partnerships and ideas will provide further opportunities to guarantee the sustainability and growth of the pharma industry.