Digital transformation is altering the DNA of the life sciences sector worldwide. While the COVID-19 pandemic came as a major disruptor for healthcare and pharma, it also accelerated the pace of innovation and brought a paradigm shift in the life sciences ecosystem. Traditionally industry leaders have been skeptical of considering best practices from outside the sector, however, the urgency created by the pandemic made them leapfrog the barrier and achieve operational efficiency. The life sciences industry has furthered the notion of digital transformation by reconsidering its entire value chain, from processes such as simulations, modelling, ELN, regulatory compliance, EDC, drug safety, and clinical trials to business applications (such as CRM, ERP) and general industrial processes. At such a time, when innovations are the norm and digitization is key to business continuity, the executives of the life sciences sector have risen to the occasion and exploited the digital transformation wave to enable growth.

Share Market Live

NSE

Thus, to take a closer look at how the digital transformation wave is revolutionising the life sciences industry, CNBCTV18.com, in collaboration with SAP, held an extremely engaging forum with the who’s who of the sector. The forum began with a keynote address by Kiran Mazumder Shaw, Executive Chairperson – Biocon Limited and Biocon Biologics Limited. Speaking of the revolutionising impact of the pandemic on the pharma industry, she said, “The pandemic has disrupted critical structures within each industry including the pharma industry. This has catalysed an acceleration of digital transformation which has dramatically changed the conventional pre-COVID paradigm, The most important impact of this digital acceleration has been in the area of regulatory processes. We have seen the delivery of a vaccine from the lab to market in less than a year which was unprecedented. We have also started adopting new regulatory processes such as emergency use authorisations, real-time rolling reviews, parallel phase- one, two and three clinical trials. This has also necessitated a number of online processes such as online submissions for review”.

The CFOs of Life Sciences: Drivers of Digital Transformation

The new age CFOs in pharma and healthcare have been the enablers of digital transformation. The next session was thus, a panel discussion with some notable CFOs of the industry including Kedar Upadhye, President, Global CFO and Head of IT- Cipla, Mankiran Chowhan, MD India- SAP Concur, Nitin Parekh, CFO- Zydus Cadila, Ramesh Swaminathan, CFO and Head Corporate Affairs- Lupin Limited, and V. V. Ravi Kumar, Executive Director and CFO- Laurus Labs.

Talking about the impact of COVID on the Indian pharma industries and what lies in the future for them, Mr. Kedar said, “COVID made digital transformation almost imperative. It was a survival need and something that challenged you from a business continuity perspective. While several experiments were on even before COVID, the pandemic has given a flip to it. What was historically thought of as something that can be done later or as a luxury, has become a necessity. You can now use digital to get more productivity out of your base operating model, improve the delight of all stakeholders, improve ease of doing business as well as improve touch-times. The primary role of digital is to now reinvent the business models itself”.

CIOs on Digital Imperatives for Future-Ready Pharma

Organisations in the pharma industry today have to build new technologies to compete with the flexibility and speed of digitisation. Companies have thus elevated their digital agenda and started creating a laundry list of digital use-cases. As the need for advanced IT solutions in pharma increases, the role of the CIO has also evolved, allowing them to drive product strategy. Therefore, to understand the role of the CIOs in today’s healthcare and pharma landscape, the next panel discussion was with some notable CIOs of the industry such as Vivek Digumarti, IT Head- Laurus Labs, Anjani Kumar, CIO- Strides Pharma Science Limited, Ritu Ranade, Vice President- SAP, Narendra K. Saini, Chief Digital and Data Officer- Lupin Limited, Srinivasa Reddy, VP and Global Head of IT (CIO)- Granules India Limited, and Mukesh Jhanwar, DGM IT- Alembic Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

Taking a deep dive into the latest trends in pharma and the change brought by COVID, Ms. Ritu said, “In the pharmaceutical industry majorly, digital transformation is very critical. We are seeing organisations focus on cost-effectiveness, improved patient care, create larger transparency and improve production. How can one enable pharma companies to manufacture counterfeit-proof medication is another area which is becoming highly important. Empowering patients and personalisation, delivering personalised patient solutions as a service is also becoming the need of the hour. Moving to the cloud for operational efficiency is also a focus area for large pharma companies.”

The Bottom Line

It is clearly time for the life sciences industry to embrace digital transformation in order to ensure long-term sustainability. The COVID-19 pandemic has given a much-needed push to digital adoption and fast-forwarded the pace of transformation by several years. New scientific discoveries, improved healthcare accessibility and patient care, global connectivity, and the growing availability of data are advancing the industry faster than ever before and those willing to evolve will probably be the leaders of tomorrow.

Discover SAP’s intelligent business solutions for your Life Sciences Enterprise. To know more check out this Whitepaper – “Improve people’s lives with the delivery of personalized patient solutions, at scale and as a service”

This is a partnered post.