Global Life Sciences Industry Outlook 2023

6. Digital transformation

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the life sciences sector, including massive digital transformation. During the pandemic, cloud technology and cloud platforms have provided enterprises with scale and flexibility to enable employees to telecommute and collaborate. Cloud technology also helps reduce costs, reduce the time to identify and understand problems, and collect data to improve production and supply chain operations. Businesses that continue to embrace innovation will gain a competitive advantage in the years ahead.

A digital strategy can help life sciences companies make progress, but it can also create new threats when data flows from external proprietary systems into data lakes on various cloud platforms. In the process of building and growing trust, enterprises must find the perfect balance between protecting important information and obtaining data, and the issue of cybersecurity and data protection has therefore attracted high attention.

Enterprise reform has become an inevitable trend. The Deloitte survey found that nearly 80 percent said their organizations need to be more aggressive in adopting digital technologies. This means shifting from a focus on business transactions to an insight-driven, value-based enterprise.

Deloitte's research found that only about 20 percent of biopharmaceutical companies are mature when it comes to digitization. Companies build greater business advantage by increasing their digital maturity and applying innovations and digital technologies to existing and emerging business models in strategic, creative and agile ways to impact patients, partners and employees.

7. Promote equity in medical care

Inequities in the health system are widespread, including significant differences in global health resources, investment, and access to care, as well as more localized, such as unconscious bias, lack of trust, and language barriers. Healthcare inequity strains labor and productivity, challenges supply chains, and influences consumer purchasing decisions, costing life sciences businesses trillions of dollars in lost productivity each year. By addressing healthcare inequities, life sciences business leaders can increase productivity, increase market opportunities, boost revenue growth, and enhance their competitive advantage.

The costs of health inequity are too high to ignore. Across the health ecosystem, inequities can limit access to affordable, quality care, create avoidable costs and financial waste, and impact each individual's potential to achieve health and well-being.

Data inequities are not uncommon, such as data on ethnicity and groups not being collected or properly recorded, and some being misused in determining treatment and diagnostic protocols. Systematic biases can lead to a lack of understanding of certain diseases.

One of the reasons why there are still obstacles to the development of trial diversity is that life sciences companies do not adequately advertise clinical trials, do not provide appropriate opportunities for all populations, and do not address the mistrust that exists among vulnerable populations. Improving clinical trial diversity is imperative.

To achieve health equity, stakeholders need to take action. Leaders must design and build systems that aim to promote health equity. Every business should address healthcare inequities by developing a plan to design and drive a future healthcare delivery that puts patients and equity at the centre.