Lab diary entry no.4 — why pharma should adopt the cloud

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In the latest instalment of the lab diary, R&D software provider, IDBS, examines why pharma companies should be implementing cloud software.

The pharmaceutical sector thrives off innovation and new developments, but these are rarely the result of one person or one organisation. Collaboration is the catalyst for innovation and cloud software is its fuel. Forward thinking pharmaceutical organisations are already adopting cloud software to manage data and projects both internally and externally, but there is still some apprehension about using cloud software.

Here are three reasons why pharmaceutical organisations should embrace the cloud.

1) Saving time

69% of companies have said that using cloud software increased their employees’ productivity. This is a significant figure considering the approval process for a new drug can take up to 15 years. Time is a precious commodity and shaving just one week off the drug discovery timeline can save $6 million, according to a report by Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, ‘How to improve R&D productivity: the pharmaceutical industry’s grand challenge’.1 Additionally, in PwC’s 20th annual CEO survey,2 35% of pharmaceutical CEOs stated they want to strengthen innovation to capitalise on new opportunities and cloud software solutions can help with that as they are incredibly agile and easy to deploy.

2) Saving money

According to research by the Journal of Health Economics, ‘Innovation in the pharmaceutical industry: New estimates of R&D cost’,3 $2.5 billion is the average cost for new drug and biologics development — a pretty substantial sum. Managing costs is a major priority for pharmaceutical organisations, and decision makers are continuously researching ways to reduce spending. Saving money and optimising systems is critical in bringing this average cost of a drug down. As reported in a recent article by Mckinsey “Senior business leaders from across the company saw more speed, less complexity, and lower costs” by moving computing workloads into the cloud. Cloud is a critical piece of the digital re-invention puzzle that needs to be considered.

3) Protecting IP and data

The current nature of the pharmaceutical industry is heavily focused on collaboration, which revolves around sharing data. But how do organisations monitor, accredit and protect data and consequently IP? The report by The European Union of Intellectual Property Office estimated that legitimate industry loses approximately €10 billion of revenue annually due to the presence of counterfeit medicines.5 There are several data management solution providers available to help facilitate collaboration and protect IP, but there is a common misconception that cloud-based data management platforms are less secure than the on-premise counterparts.

62% of CEOs surveyed by PwC said they were “somewhat or extremely concerned about cyber threats”, but pharmaceutical organisations are more likely to have IP and data corrupted unintentionally as opposed to malicious cyberattacks. An example of the unintentional, but still extremely damaging, data and IP corruption is the Micro Therapeutic Research Labs data scandal that resulted in the European Medicines Agency (EMA) recommending the suspension of over 100 drugs in development.6 EMA stated the suspensions can be lifted once alternative data establishing bioequivalence are provided. Using a cloud-based data management platform would enable organisations to monitor all key aspects of data and IP generation, notifying sponsoring organisations in real-time of any operational misconduct.

These are just some of the potential benefits of cloud software for pharmaceutical companies and why implementation should be the next logical step.

References

  1. Paul, S.M., et al., Nat. Rev. Drug Discov., 2010;9:203–214.
  2. https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/ceo-agenda/ceosurvey/2017/gx/industries/pharmaceuticals-and-life-sciences.html
  3. DiMasi, J.A., et al., J. Health Econ., 2016;47:20–3
  4. http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/healthcare-giant-shares-prescription-for-digital-reinvention?cid=other-soc-lkn-mip-mck-oth-1705&kui=ZiAmjAZbzlt3R3tVaRRmIQ
  5. https://euipo.europa.eu/ohimportal/en/web/observatory/ipr-infringement-pharmaceutical-sector
  6. http://www.ema.europa.eu/ema/index.jsp?curl=pages/medicines/human/referrals/Micro_Therapeutic_Research/human_referral_000413.jsp&mid=WC0b01ac05805c516f