Pharma’s digital inflection point

Pic by Charl Folscher on Unsplash

Billed as the world’s most influential technology event, this year’s CES show saw its first ever keynote from a healthcare company when Abbott CEO Robert Ford took to the stage in Las Vegas in January.

For Ford, the focus was on his company’s new range of consumer ‘biowearable’ health devices, but his appearance was also another reminder of the increasing importance of ‘digital’ in all its forms across the life sciences sector.

Alongside buzzworthy metaverse, NFT and cryptocurrency offerings, this year’s CES also saw updates in remote patient monitoring tech, mobile games for better mental health and a slew of wellness devices.

NHS health tech and digital transformation lessons

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In the year since the UK went into its first lockdown to limit the spread of COVID-19 the country’s health service has undergone an unprecedented digital transformation. 

The NHS quickly scrambled to reduce face-to-face contact between patients and healthcare professionals, and manage demand for services that would soon be overstretched by dealing with the pandemic.

Just as it did across the pharmaceutical industry, COVID’s medical imperative swept aside any lingering doubts and delays to greater use of technology, kick-starting a major digital transformation of healthcare.

No cooling off for pharma digital transformation in 2021

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COVID-19 has already proved to be a digital accelerant for the pharmaceutical industry, sparking new ideas into life and lighting a fire underneath existing plans that had, in retrospect, yet to burn brightly.

After a year in which the need for digital transformation in pharma reached white heat levels, the sector mustn’t cool off in 2021 and revert to business-as-usual. A return to normal is the longed for goal for many of us, but pharma companies must decide what their future normal should look like.

“The healthcare industry is at an inflection point,” agrees Novartis’ Elizabeth Theophille.

5 ways digital health, and digital pharma, changed in 2020

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Reviewing 2019’s key digital health stories as last year dawned I suggested that, while big strides continued to be made, any definitive ‘coming of age’ moment for the sector was unlikely.

But that was before the first reports emerged of a highly contagious coronavirus and 2020 will be forever associated with COVID-19 and the global devastation and disruption it has wrought.

Now, after a year that feels like it had many more than the usual 12 months, ‘digital’ has most certainly come of age across all aspects of our lives, including communication, commerce, working life and, yes, health.

Deep Dive: Digital Health Innovation

In the latest issue of pharmaphorum’s digital magazine Deep Dive the editorial team surveys the digital health ecosystem and developments in telehealth, mobile health and digital therapeutics.

After months of unprecedented digital transformation, pharma – and healthcare as a whole – face big questions about what digital health, post-COVID, will look like.

The COVID-powered rise of telehealth in the US

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Telehealth in the US is very much enjoying a moment in the sun right now, offering a contact-free solution to healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Systems have been implemented for patients in a matter of weeks as organisations adapted to the new reality of coronavirus social distancing and lockdowns.