Seven themes life sciences leaders should consider following Pharma 2023
Gain a competitive edge from these industry insights.
Earlier this quarter, over a thousand leaders from various life sciences (LS) organizations across the globe gathered in Barcelona at Pharma 2023 by Reuters to discuss the industry’s toughest challenges, share innovation, and define the future. A wide range of topics were presented, from commercial and marketing to medical affairs, patient engagement, market access, and real-world evidence. And while numerous thought-provoking insights and takeaways were shared during the three-day event, here are the top seven core industry themes that I found particularly compelling:
1. Addressing health inequities will unlock better outcomes for patients and populations and promote economic growth.
As an industry, there is agreement that health equity is both morally imperative and a positive driver for patient, business, and stakeholder experience; however today only 50% of organizations have key measures focused on health equity (shared by a keynote presenter). LS organizations need to better address and prioritize health equity across the value chain and direct focus toward driving positive, equitable patient outcomes for all populations.
2. Digital health is not an option; it is a requirement.
Digital health solutions add value to an organization’s portfolio and accelerate the organization’s vision. Digital solutions have played a significant value-add from decentralizing trials to developing market access models, manufacturing optimization through machine learning, and expanding access to healthcare. However, to continue this momentum, according to LS industry panelists, it’s crucial we encourage partnerships (especially with other stakeholders involved within the care continuum), engage buy-in with senior executives, gain insights through data, and mature to produce tangible results.
3. Encouraging experiments and celebrating failures is critical for innovation.
Agile transformation requires a paradigm shift — not just process or methodology change. A culture of innovation requires the safety (and an expectation) to fail. This mindset creates a force to investigate, understand, and quickly iterate to improve the experience for patients and healthcare providers (HCPs) alike. To push innovation across the organization, it’s important to empower self-managed teams, place the focus on the experience (for the customer, customer’s customer, and employee), and move from a pushed engagement to a personalized omnichannel strategy.
4. Embrace content and realize value from the first possible touchpoint.
Consider, for a moment, your favorite show. Do you love it for the content or for the network on which it airs? If the content remained the same, would the network or streaming service make a difference for you? Similarly, the experience for patients is much the same–meaning their engagement with a pharma company is through the touchpoints they experience with a given brand. Content received throughout their care journey, from early discussions with an HCP to long-term treatment, should be engaging, disease-state oriented, and valuable to enhance patient trust and advocacy.
Given the opportunities around the attention economy, combined with almost ubiquitous omnichannel strategies, the continued challenges for organizations are scaling personalization, data protection, and compliance.
5. Adopt social listening and social-based support for a patient-centricity mindset.
With social media’s continued expansion as an information and connection source, many recommendations customers gain today come from social online platforms. Hence, it’s crucial organizations begin investing resources into social listening, which can provide key insights and data points that help organizations better understand their customers and their customer’s customer. Leveraging social platforms to provide support and content to key audiences can drive growth and add a transformational competitive advantage for LS organizations.
6. Collection of insights requires intentional governance, strategy, and healthy culture around data.
There is no question there is a data economy. And the sheer amount of data being generated in the healthcare industry accounts for 30% of the world’s total data volume. By 2025, the compound annual growth rate of healthcare data is projected to be closer to 36%, which means it is growing at a clip of 10% faster than other industries (like financial services, manufacturing, and media and communications). This industry should be leading the way in terms of data-driven innovation, insights, and impacts; however, there is also the challenge that more data can mean less insight. To be successful at creating a data-driven culture, it is essential that an organization strategically prioritizes how data is gathered and governed and how it is visualized and used to generate ultimate value.
7. Improve trust by investing earlier in the patient’s journey.
Building trust with patients helps LS organizations gain better data outcomes and insights from a patient’s journey. To build this mutualistic relationship, organizations should prioritize being part of the patient’s journey from start to finish. Building this relationship of trust early in a patient’s journey will encourage patients to share information earlier, enable better data-informed decisions, and improve overall patient outcomes.
Now, the question remains, what should leaders within the industry do next? If we take the recommendations and insights of those at Pharma 2023 as a guide, LS stakeholders should:
- Prioritize and measure health equity outcomes.
- Embrace a digital-first mindset across the value chain.
- Focus on agile transformation and innovation.
- Invest in content to engage patients earlier and build trust.
- Strengthen focus around creating a modern culture of data.
- Consider adopting social listening and social-based support.
Did you attend Pharma 2023? I’d love to know how our takeaways resonate with yours — find me on LinkedIn.
Johanna DeYoung is Slalom’s global life sciences lead. She has over 15 years of experience in healthcare and life sciences and is driven by the meaning and human impact of the work across the industry. An advocate for patient centricity, Johanna has deep expertise in commercial and customer strategy and transformation — spanning launch strategies and execution, digital transformation, marketing and data strategies, patient services, market access, sales enablement, and more.
A proud platinum sponsor of Pharma 2023, Slalom is a global consulting firm that helps people and organizations dream bigger, move faster, and build better tomorrows for all. Our healthcare and life sciences industry teams partner with healthcare, biotech, and pharmaceutical leaders to strengthen their organizations, improve their systems, and help with some of their most strategic business challenges. Learn more and reach out today.
