Gartner s Six Business Drivers Impacting the Pharmaceutical Industry

The social nature of today's constantly connected patients and consumers means life sciences organizations must provide on-demand access to information and support. While scientific advancements have led to miraculous treatments, technological advancements have the potential to facilitate unprecedented innovation. This new wave of innovation is dependent on capturing environmental determinants of health and the delivery of real-time care and collaboration.

The changing landscape of life sciences and pharmaceuticals

To adapt and succeed in this changing landscape, life sciences organizations are responding by digitizing and improving processes across the product lifecycle using a digital transformation platform approach.

The recent Gartner report, Business Drivers of Technology Decisions, provides insight into the key decisions for CIOs in life sciences, as well as an analysis of business priorities in the industry:

• Pace, cost, and risk of innovation
  Increased pressure to bring products and services to the market has led to a push toward "patient-centric" and personalized care models.

• Impact of globalization
  Competition is global and emerging markets all over the world are disrupting the industry. Meanwhile, adhering to government regulations around taxation, trade, approvals, market access, and pricing continues to be a struggle.

• Changing definitions of value and price
  Increasing pressure to lower drug prices and nontraditional ways of serving patients, such as education, support, and self-administration, means pricing is more value-based. Gartner recommends that CIOs strengthen their analytics to evaluate data, predict revenue and services, and make comparisons on a national level.

• Shifting health policy, legislation, reforms, and regulations
  Government policy, funding level, law, and regulation are constantly changing around the globe, and these continue to affect how life sciences organizations operate.

• Reshaping value propositions across the healthcare ecosystem
  "Coopetition" will become more common between organizations as they develop new business models and create winning business strategies.

• Rise in consumer accountability and power
  Patients will control most of the power due to the growing impact of omni-channel communication between consumers and organizations.

The role of technology

These drivers impact business priorities, and the role of IT in life sciences organizations has expanded as a result. The operating model of the future for life sciences is centered around value to the patient and must happen on a global scale, all while maintaining compliance to regulations.

IT leaders must consider the key trends and align business drivers with shifting priorities by leveraging technology like the Appian Digital Transformation Platform that allows data integration from disparate systems within the enterprise. By automating manual, siloed processes, such a Platform can enable the organization to streamline R&D as well as clinical, regulatory, supply chain and manufacturing operations, and thus speed time-to-market.

Digitization is more than an opportunity for life sciences leaders; it's also a priority. Many organizations are struggling with developing their digital strategy to enable innovative ways to deliver care in a shifting environment. Discover Gartner's recommendations to CIOs and IT leaders in this report.

Kamna Talwar