The pharmaceutical manufacturing market is flourishing and is predicted to reach 1.3 trillion US Dollars by 2020. Technological innovations like mobile applications, cloud-based data storage, advanced analytics, and IoT are transforming the healthcare industry. It is also affecting the market, government policies, and forcing the industry to change their business practices. To sustain in the digital market several pharma investors are experimenting with digital initiatives. These trends will help in changing the face of the pharma industry and bring advancement to the industry.
Patient Empowerment Shaping the Pharma Industry
Patient empowerment helps people gain control over their lives and increases their ability to act on important issues. The empowerment of patient emerged as a new method that can help improve medical outcomes by lowering the treatment costs. This concept seems promising in the management of chronic diseases. According to a survey, 60% of the US population are educating themselves on healthcare and monitoring their health by using apps and websites. Today, empowered people are shaping the healthcare industry. There are several companies that have started an empowerment program to educate the people.
Augmented and Virtual Reality Improving Interaction of Customers and Company
Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality have great potential to change the current scenario of the medical field by making complicated things such as remote surgery, easier. Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality both are specially designed as apps that are operated through mobile phones and give a fresh perspective of the world through digital information. It acts as an effective tool to grab customer attention.
This technology offers the easiest way to understand the mechanism of drug action in 3D instead of reading the descriptions given on the bottle. Additionally, it also helps the scientists and lab technicians to observe their experiments. This technology provides the manufacturing guidelines to industry workers so that they can perform their task without having hands-on training. The advancement in augmentation technology is a simple way to communicate with doctors and customers; it lowers the cost of pharmaceuticals that are wasted on marketing.
Tailored Medicine Overwhelms Traditional Medicine
Before introducing any new drug into the market, it is mandatory to take its clinical trial which is a lengthy and time-consuming process. Personalized medicines open the gateway for pharma industries to produce drugs according to person’s genetic constitution. These medicines are more beneficial as compared to the traditional blockbuster drugs.
Tailored medicines lower the chances of getting side effects, it prevents and targets the disease instead of reacting on it, and it also reduces the treatment cost. Many scientists and physicians are working on personalized medicine to make advances rapidly. Recently, several pharmaceuticals have their own personalized medicine programs and are performing basic clinical studies.
Genetic Medicines, a Powerful Tool
In this era of genomics, we are living in dynamic times. Sometimes genes are the only reason for illness and at such times doctor uses genes to plan a proper treatment. Genomic medicines are different from that of the personalized medicines. Genomic medicines have been used to tackle complex diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.
3D Printing, the way of Drug Delivery
3D printing technology produces biodegradable drugs, and hence is becoming a popular trend in the healthcare industry. This system opens new door for many pharmaceuticals to develop innovative solid dosage forms which are well-known and distinct products. 3D printing is the essential tool that reduces both time and cost of the manufacturing process. This helps the industry to get an accurate, cheap, structured and tailored drug delivery system. In the future, 3D printing will be useful to fabricate and engineer a variety of dosage forms.
Body Sensors
The wireless systems of wearable computing devices that have been implanted in the body are known as body sensors. Use of body sensors in therapeutics is an emerging trend in pharmaceuticals. The embedded microchips, wearables, robots and other body sensors receive patient’s information and send it to the health experts. This information helps the physicians to tackle the disease. Pharma industry is using this technique for clinical trials and patient monitoring.
Artificial Intelligence, Time Conserving Technology
The Artificial Intelligence (AI) and supercomputers help in collecting large or extensive data within a fraction of seconds. With the invention of AI, it is possible for pharmaceuticals to take clinical trials within a few seconds than spending years for that. This method ultimately reduces the time as well as drug pricing. Cognitive computers like IBM Watson have been used in genomic research and biotechnology. The need is rising for such research to enhance the growth in healthcare.
Now it is necessary to understand the actual benefits from these evolving trends. The way how they manage with these trends affects not only their future, but also the future direction of patient care, provider decisions, and payment mechanisms.