4 minute read 22 Feb 2021
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Responding to digital disruption in Health & Life Sciences

By EY Ireland

Multidisciplinary professional services organisation

EY Ireland, a leading global professional services organisation providing assurance, tax, audit, strategy and transactions and consulting services.

4 minute read 22 Feb 2021

We are now living in an on-demand world, where we have instant access to information, tools and insights which help us live our lives more efficiently. Why should it be any different for our health and in our jobs?

In the past five years, emerging technologies have had a profound impact on healthcare in responding to the needs of empowered digital citizens. This includes the disruptive transformation of clinical trials, revolutionising drug delivery processes and introducing telemedicine to manage patients in their homes. In Ireland, the major health insurers are already offering virtual GP services for non-critical conditions.

We are now witnessing the emergence of ‘health technology’- every company developing health products is now a data company, and therefore a tech company.

Patient-centric approach 

Perhaps one of the key changes for Pharma/Biotech is the shift towards a patient-centric approach. The ubiquity of mobile and peer to peer sharing tools are transforming patients and consumers into super consumers. The rise of these super consumers insists that the customer be kept at the centre of this market paradigm, and this shifts the power away from health and life sciences companies. The Pharma industry is responding by developing disease specific apps to empower individuals to better manage their conditions and deliver data fuelled insights to health stakeholders. Learning from other digitally mature sectors, Pharma is now looking to better engage with online communities including:

  • Engaging ‘health influencers’ to build awareness and help change behaviours
  • Chatbots to provide personalised responses to online queries
  • VR and Artificial Intelligence to better engage and educate patients on their specific disease

Emerging technologies are transforming the R&D process to increase patient and physician-centricity, whilst reducing cost and increasing speed to market. The Pharmaceutical Industry spent over four times more on research and development in 2015 than in 1995, with no corresponding increase in the number of drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration. This is indicative of the increasing demands on health and life sciences companies, including experiences from personalised products and services customised to individuals’ genomes.

Digital health

Digital is enabling the capture of clinical insights outside of the traditional clinical setting, leading to new patient-centric data collection, for example clothing containing sensors to monitor movement and in-home devices that monitor independent living in the elderly. An ever growing range of connected health devices can capture everything from weight to monitoring tremor. It is now possible to collect a vast array of physiological data including vital-signs such as heart rate, respiration rate, oxygen saturation, continuous glucose monitoring, sleep and activity data, and using advanced analytics to monitor patients outside of the hospital environment  

Artificial Intelligence and machine learning can leverage these data to generate new insights and digital biomarkers that can demonstrate more clinically relevant, real-world outcomes.

One of the most novel applications is the use of drones to deliver lifesaving blood and drugs to areas lacking the necessary infrastructure or cut off by natural disasters. The use of individual health monitoring apps such as MyFitnessPal and FitBit are well established. However, this has gone further with the approval by FDA of ‘digital therapeutics’ - apps that are prescribed to patients to help manage certain conditions better.

The focus on ‘outcomes’ is at the heart of digital transformation. To measure outcomes, we need ‘real world data’. Framing innovation in terms of outcomes and personalisation means products are no longer the central driver of value. Instead, it is the outcomes derived from data that are differentiating. Data is spread across multiple locations and formats, our mobile phones and in data centres. Healthcare must bring this data together, so that it is available to enable health professionals, regulators, payers and ultimately patients and their carers to achieve better care decisions to get the best possible outcomes.

What this means for skills

There is no doubt that new skills are needed in this new environment to mine the vast volumes of data to derive new insights, from R&D through manufacturing, supply chain and patient use.

We are seeing the skills needs in both Life Sciences and Healthcare evolve rapidly. Of utmost priority is the need for strong clinical skills and scientific knowledge; however, there is a growing need to incorporate skills in customer experience design, data analytics, alliance management and programme management. Companies who have the ability to bring together individuals and stakeholders with different skills and perspectives to create tools, apps, algorithms and therapeutics will dramatically improve patient outcomes, irrespective of the therapeutic area. 

The past couple of years have seen exciting players emerge like Digital Health start-ups here in Ireland that are transforming how patients take responsibility for managing their health.

The wave of change will continue and we need to be ready to catch it!

Summary

We are now witnessing the emergence of ‘health technology’- every company developing health products is now a data company, and therefore a tech company.  But this wave of digital disruption requires the right response.

About this article

By EY Ireland

Multidisciplinary professional services organisation

EY Ireland, a leading global professional services organisation providing assurance, tax, audit, strategy and transactions and consulting services.