The pandemic created a new reality for life sciences companies – one where digital transformation is no longer an option, but a necessity. A key takeaway in an IDC Perspective report, “U.S. Life Science Top 10 Market Trends for 2021,” was that digital transformation remains a major focus. The industry seeks to foster collaboration, improve access to data and insights and improve patient outcomes, efficiency, and financial performance. 

As a result, there is more opportunity for innovation than ever before. Technology and synthetic data, acting as a representation of real-world data, are being applied to support the life sciences industry trends and improve the drug discovery, clinical development and treatment commercialization stages throughout the product lifecycle.

“COVID-19 has accelerated changes already underway in the life sciences industry, forcing the industry to adapt quickly to remote work and collaboration across multiple disciplines,” said Michael Townsend, research director of IDC Health Insights Life Sciences Commercial Strategies. “Access to multiple and varied sources of data is increasingly important, with a renewed emphasis on generating useful insights leading to faster and better decision-making.”

Cloud computing and storage, artificial intelligence and advanced analytics, internet of things, edge networks and 5G will accelerate the collection of data, “but the key will be how to use this information to improve efficiency and patient outcomes,” Townsend added.

To explore this evolution, IBM will present a Watson Health Life Sciences 2022 Trends webinar on Dec. 7, at 10 a.m. ET (registration required). “The Next 3 Years of Life Sciences Innovation: Precision Medicine, Advanced Clinical Data Management and Beyond” will feature an expert panel of thought leaders and industry experts to discuss their perspectives on how the life sciences will evolve over the course of the next three years. 

Dave Vellante, host of theCUBE, will moderate the event that includes Lorraine Marchand, general manager of life sciences at IBM Watson Health; Nimita Limaye, research vice president at IDC; and Greg Cunningham, director of real-world evidence, Center of Excellence, at Eli Lilly and Co. You can read theCUBE’s post-event coverage in the coming days.

Trends driving digital transformation in life sciences

Precision and accuracy are crucial when taking a treatment or device to market. Life sciences organizations need insights to make informed decisions during the discovery, development and commercialization processes. 

These insights need to be generated with diverse, representative real-world data that is packaged and accessible in a way to tell a story that resonates with stakeholders. Real-world evidence is needed to help life science organizations support and quantify treatment value claims in their interactions with regulators, payers and providers, as products have considerable implications for human lives. 

The panel will discuss some of the technology helping those in the life sciences industry to achieve more personalized and precise medicine, including AI-powered intelligent health records to create targeted real-world evidence, longitudinal real-world data that helps researchers and clinicians make the connection between treatments and the people who need them, intuitive platforms for making research and discovery efficient, and expanding research ecosystems.

By 2025, 75% of trials are expected to be patient-centric, decentralized clinical trials, according to a recent IDC report. Ninety percent will be hybrid, and at least 10% will be virtual, driven by a 30% growth in connected health technologies. The pandemic has fast-tracked the adoption of decentralized trials, which means new approaches and technology are essential to help participants stay engaged.

The webinar will touch upon the need for greater expertise in decentralized clinical trials execution, advanced technology (eClinical) for clinical data management, and why better participant/patient engagement is essential. Additional panels will deep dive into regulatory approval strategies and the proliferation of data as an increasingly complex challenge. How can data meet evolving regulatory requirements, and how can machine learning uncover quality insights?

Helping to build smarter health ecosystems

IBM Watson Health provides a combination of technology, such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and data and analytics, as well as consulting services, to organizations in the healthcare industry. The company says it aims to help build smarter ecosystems through expertise in health, data and analytics, and delivery of actionable insights.

Partnerships with companies such as Salesforce and Graticule, further augment these ecosystems. IBM is working with Graticule to combine diverse real-world data from the IBM MarketScan Research Databases and the IBM Explorys Therapeutic Datasets with Graticule’s rare disease and analytical expertise to help accelerate research for rare diseases.

The partnership with Salesforce integrates IBM’s Digital Health Pass with Salesforce’s Work.com platform to offer a “privacy-preserving” way for people to share their vaccination and health status. The solution was designed to let employers verify that people can return to the office without putting anyone else at risk, while hotels and sports venues are able to reopen safely.

Looking ahead to next week’s webinar, the panel of experts is expected to cover some groundbreaking topics and insights into how the life sciences industry is undergoing a digital transformation, the challenges organizations face, and the technologies that will improve the discovery of new drugs, clinical development, and product commercialization. 

Livestream of The Next 3 Years of Life Sciences Innovation

The Next 3 Years of Life Sciences Innovation special session is a livestream event. You can register for the livestream here.

How to watch theCUBE interviews

You can read theCUBE’s post-event coverage in the coming days.

Guests

Guests appearing on The Next 3 Years of Life Sciences Innovation special session include Lorraine Marchand, general manager of life sciences at IBM Watson Health; Nimita Limaye, research vice president at IDC; and Greg Cunningham, director of real-world evidence, Center of Excellence, at Eli Lilly and Co.

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for The Next 3 Years of Life Sciences Innovation special session. Neither IBM, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

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