The Influence of Digital on the Pharmaceutical Industry

DigiPharma Connect focuses on and celebrates the pharmaceutical industry’s move toward all things digital. We asked two members of our expert speaking faculty to weigh in on the shift to digital and what it means for their business.

‘Digital Health’ has become an industry buzzword in the past few years. What exactly does digital health mean to you?

Stevens: Digital health represents the convergence of the exponentiation of technological capabilities and the need to transform how we all can improve healthcare for patients.

Schapeler: Digital transformation as a whole is a priority at Bayer and we continue to focus on innovation at Bayer, which always has been part of Bayer’s DNA. Bayer went through many major changes in its 154 year history and has shown great capability to adapt to new environments and leverage new business opportunities.

We see digital health as one of the major changes impacting our products by either replacing them with digital solutions down the road or adding to its value by providing additional information and tools to patients and healthcare providers.

How is the pharmaceutical industry in a unique position when it comes to digital?

Stevens: The pharmaceuticals industry is uniquely positioned to capitalize on ‘digital’ because it has the responsibility to continually advance its pursuits of treating & curing disease.

Schapeler: Digital transformation is in full swing at Bayer offering many opportunities to optimize drug development (remote monitoring, new biomarkers, and advanced analytics).

More concrete examples include using patches to capture HR, activity, and body position. SpO2 was done with our clinical trial 2.0 project in 2015 and 2016, and we’re building on that experience and developing the Betaconnect/Adempas to help move toward a closed loop system.

How have you (or your organization) transformed your mindset to embrace digital innovation?

Schapeler Partnering with large and small tech companies is essential for Bayer. For example, Bayer has established a small and agile innovation team co-located with Singularity University in Mountain View in Silicon Valley.