Digital Transformation for Life Sciences

In hindsight, one remarkable aspect of the COVID crisis was the speed with which vaccines passed through regulatory approval processes to address the pandemic emergency. Approvals that would typically take years were expedited to mere months, a pace not usually seen in the life sciences industry.

It was an extraordinary situation, as Paul Shawah, Senior Vice President of Commercial Strategy at Veeva Systems, notes:

“There were things that were unnaturally fast during COVID. There was a shifting of priorities, a shifting of focus. In some cases, you had the emergency approvals or the expedited approvals of the vaccines that you saw in the early days, so there was faster growth. Everything was kind of different in the COVID environment.”

Today, the industry is not operating at that same rapid pace, but the impact of this acceleration remains significant:

“What it did do is it challenged companies to think about why can’t we operate faster at a steady state? There was an old steady state, then there was COVID speed. The industry is trying to get to a new steady state. It won’t be as fast as during COVID because of unique circumstances, but expectations are now much higher. This drives a need to modernize systems, embrace the cloud, become more digital, and improve efficiency.”

Companies like Veeva, alongside enterprise giants such as Salesforce, SAP, and Oracle, specialize in this market and play crucial roles in life sciences digitization. According to a McKinsey study, about 45% of tech spending in life sciences goes to three key technologies: applied Artificial Intelligence, industrialized Machine Learning, and Cloud Computing. Over 80% of the top 20 global pharma and medtech companies are operating in the cloud to some extent.

However, a study by Accenture found that life sciences firms are among the lowest in achieving benefits from cloud investments, with only 43% satisfied with their results and less than a quarter confident that cloud migration initiatives will deliver the promised value within expected time frames.

This presents both a challenge and an opportunity. Frank Defesche, SVP & GM of Life Sciences at Salesforce, sees it as the latter, stating:

“The life sciences industry faces increased competition, evolving patient expectations, and ongoing pressure to bring devices and drugs to market faster. With rising drug costs, frustrated doctors, and varying regulatory scrutiny, life sciences organizations must find ways to do more with less.”

The industry also contends with an unprecedented influx of data and disparate systems, making it difficult to move quickly. Addressing changes one by one is too slow and costly. Defesche believes that a systemic solution, fueled by connected data and Artificial Intelligence (AI), is key to overcoming these challenges.

Paul Shawah of Veeva emphasizes the unique challenges of the life sciences sector:

“Life sciences firms primarily do two things: discover and develop medicines, and commercialize them by educating doctors and getting the right drugs to patients. The drug development cycle includes clinical trials, managing everything related to drug safety, the manufacturing process, and ensuring quality. They also manage regulatory registrations. On the commercial side, it’s about reaching out to doctors and healthcare professionals.”

Veeva’s Vault platform is designed for life sciences, with customers like Merck, Eli Lilly, and Boehringer Ingelheim. Shawah acknowledges it’s “still relatively early days” for cloud computing adoption but notes successes in areas like CRM, where Veeva achieved over 80% market share by standardizing processes and reducing technical debt.

Other areas, like parts of the clinical trials process, remain largely untapped by cloud computing. Shawah sees opportunities to improve patient experiences and make the process more efficient.

AI represents a significant area of opportunity. Shawah explains Veeva’s approach:

“I’ll break AI into two categories: traditional AI, Machine Learning, and data science, which we’ve been doing for a long time, and generative AI, which is new. We’re focusing on finding use cases that create sustainable, repeatable value. We’re building capabilities into our Vault platform to support AI.”

Joe Ferraro, VP of Product, Life Sciences at Salesforce, emphasizes AI’s critical role:

“We are born out of the data and AI era, and we’re taking that philosophy into everything we do from a product standpoint. We aim to move from creating a system of record to a system of insight, using data and AI to transform how users interact with software.”

Ferraro highlights the need for change:

“Organizations told us, ‘Please don’t build the same thing we have now. We are mired in fragmented experiences. Our sales and marketing teams aren’t talking, and our medical and commercial teams don’t understand each other.’ Life Sciences Cloud aims to move the industry from these fragmented experiences to an end-to-end, AI-powered experience engine.”

The COVID crisis highlighted the critical role of the life sciences industry. There’s a massive opportunity for digital transformation, whether through specialists like Veeva or enterprise players like Salesforce, Oracle, and SAP. Data must be the foundation of any solution, especially amidst the current AI hype cycle. Ensuring this data is well-managed is a crucial starting point for industry-wide change.