Ninety percent of the world’s data was generated in the past two years. In the next two years, the amount of information generated will continue to accelerate. Given the pace and volume of this data accumulation, pharmaceutical companies must learn how to keep up with the influx and leverage it to their advantage. In particular, pharmaceutical companies must learn to leverage insights to outperform rivals in an increasingly competitive market.
The Insight Gap
Although collecting and engaging with the insights and impressions of stakeholders is crucial to the success of developing, launching, and marketing new products, the process by which pharmaceutical companies do this needs to be more cohesive, more efficient, and less frustrating. Better insights management is an immediate issue for life science companies to confront, with new technology providing the tools necessary for medical affairs teams to bridge this insights gap.
It’s important to acknowledge that insight-gathering is a complex process. It depends on schedules and logistics, generating value-added discussions with ramifications outside the meeting room, the availability of scientific information, the proliferation of channels, and the resulting interpretation of the collected insights. These challenges, coupled with further constraints of compliance requirements and strict timelines, make it easy to understand how many factors constrain typical insights-gathering strategies.
The result is an insight gap, which occurs when insights aren’t gathered, shared, or used effectively, costing money and time. Fewer than 10% of drugs in development make it to market from phase I clinical trials, and, on average, the successful development of a single drug costs more than $2 billion. And despite the acceleration of digital transformation, ROI for R&D investment at large biotechs has consistently declined for the last decade. These are all consequences of the life science insights gap.
Bridging the gap
Companies must conduct robust, data-led insights management to take full advantage of the information collected to close the insight gap and capitalize on growing data sets. There are three areas where the insights gap can cause a breakdown in this critical process.
First, pharma and medical device affairs teams must fully understand specific disease communities. While relying upon known experts who have already contributed to past conversations is tempting, adopting a more holistic view of voices within the disease community can help teams precisely gauge who is best to engage for the most productive discussions. Beyond that, it’s also essential to have insight into conversations around your company, brand, competition, or targeted therapeutic area.
Teams must also decide where to engage. For two years, the pandemic stopped most in-person meetings and medical congresses, and we adapted to asynchronous discussions. Now, even though it’s possible to meet in person again, the industry is still choosing asynchronous work instead of or in conjunction with in-person meetings. Asynchronous conversations – often more accessible, with better participation, than in-person equivalents – can produce 30-40% more novel insights than traditional meetings.
Finally, life science medical affairs teams need to interpret and share the insights they’ve gained and make decisions. Applying artificial intelligence – specifically, life science-trained natural language processing – can help ensure that critical takeaways are quickly identified and not lost among vast amounts of information from multiple channels. And while AI tools can’t take the place of skilled humans, they can drastically reduce the time needed to identify important concepts or areas of concern.
Technology’s role for medical affairs teams
Current methods of insight-gathering include multiple processes owned by different teams or business units and rely on information stored in disparate systems. An insights management platform offers one place to collect, manage, and analyze insights. Furthermore, because the insights management technology operates without disruptive integrations or highly specialized training, companies that adopt these solutions will see faster results than they might with traditional productivity-minded measures like large-scale restructuring, M&A activity, or a tech stack overhaul.
Insights – those pivotal points that effect change – can provide opportunities to open new geographic markets, create targeted messaging, build stronger relationships with KOLs and patients, and develop better products under accelerated timelines. They are more than data points and observations; instead, insights are the currency of the life science industry. Applying the right technology to the insights management process is just sound strategy, and a critical priority for life science in the year ahead.
By Lance Hill, Within3 CEO
About the author
Lance joined Within3 as Chief Executive Officer in 2007. Under his leadership, the world’s top 20 pharmaceutical organisations and leading medical device companies have come to place their trust in the Within3 platform and value proposition.
Prior to joining Within3, Lance served as Vice President and General Manager of webMethods’ worldwide Service Oriented Architecture software business. Previous roles include enterprise engineering and e-business architecture for IBM Global Services and National City Bank.
