Our very own David Smith, VP of Technical Operations features on PEP Talks, Körber Pharma’s Pharmaceutical Expert Podcast, to explore answers to this question.
Alongside Sandra Rodriguez Senior Industry Analyst at Axendia, David joined hosts Frank O’Loughlin and Elizabeth Doyle, PHR, MBA as they discussed the nature of disruptive events, and what valuable learnings and process updates can be gained from disruptions such as COVID-19, for pharmaceutical manufacturing.
The podcast is live now, listen to the full episode or take a look at our summary of the discussion below.
What were the main impacts of Covid-19 on the pharmaceutical industry?
The global pandemic had far reaching impacts on the pharmaceutical industry, firstly the global demand for PPE, vaccines, instruments and clinical trials, saw supply chains stretched to their limits. Inefficiencies were highlighted and Covid-19 challenged manufacturing agility and the ability to adapt quickly to a major pandemic.
The mandate to stay at home also had a massive disruptive impact on the ability to work efficiently and effectively. The manual, paper driven processes became ineffective and unhelpful and the need for digital transformation in the way that companies operate was brought to the top of the agenda.
The need for digital transformation
The shift in priorities and ways of working highlighted the need for a transformation in the way a life sciences company operates, thinking about scalability, flexibility, gaining control of data and ultimately becoming data driven, rather than manual paper based processes. Digital transformation will enable visibility across the company and the sector and allow the collation of intelligent data that supports decision making and future planning.
Where are we as a sector on the journey to digital transformation
As an industry, life sciences are data rich and intelligence poor and it is about unlocking how we access this data in a way that it can analysed and turned into insights that can then have major learnings for the sector. There is a need to make the data drive the change we want to see. By prioritizing scalable digital architecture that enables a consistent flow of information, this can bring major benefits to supporting the decentralisation ambitions and drive patient access.
For some start ups, who started cloud based and with digital systems in place, it isn’t a transformation for them, whilst other larger companies, with decades of process and paper data, the transformation is more challenging. What we know is that there is an eagerness sector wide to go on this digital transformation journey.
The catalyst for change
The pandemic and other disrupters have highlighted the need for change. As a sector, it is about adopting a digital mindset to enable more agility and flexibility, and to ultimately better prepare for future disruptive events. There is a definite heightened level of awareness now of what needs to be done for the future. Here at Ori Biotech, we welcome this transformation.
Discover Ori Biotech’s podcast, ‘Ori Spotlight” to find out more.