Top Priorities for Life Science GBS Organizations in 2023: Scaling R&D Capabilities | Virtual Roundtable

April 5, 2023

Virtual Roundtable

Top Priorities for Life Science GBS Organizations in 2023: Scaling R&D Capabilities

April 05, 2023 |

9:30 am EDT | 7 PM IST

Life Sciences GBS organizations today have evolved into strategic partners for their enterprises, driving both operational and technological advancements. As part of the evolution, Life Sciences GBS organizations are increasingly supporting critical functions, including R&D operations, and scaling up these capabilities has been a top priority.

Join this virtual roundtable as our experts and your peers discuss and explore the vision, effort, and support required for scaling R&D capabilities from offshore/nearshore delivery centers.

What you will take away:

In this collaborative session, we’ll uncover the key aspects of building R&D capabilities in GBS, such as:

The vision for housing R&D capabilities in GBS and the value proposition of having an offshore/nearshore presence
Key enablers and challenges in offshoring/nearshoring core capabilities
Success driving actions from Life Sciences GBS leaders
Success stories from best-in-class peers

Who should attend?

GBS leaders
GBS Strategy leaders
GBS site leaders
GBS R&D/Clinical leaders

Virtual Roundtable Guidelines

The only price of admission is participation. Attendees should be prepared to share their experiences and be willing to engage in discourse.

Participation is limited to enterprise leaders (no service providers). Everest Group will approve each attendance request to ensure an appropriate group size and mix of participants. The sessions are 90 minutes in duration and include introductions, a short presentation, and a facilitated discussion.

Jimit Arora

Partner

Bharath M

Vice President, Global Sourcing

Kushagra Singh

Senior Analyst, Global Sourcing

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How the COVID-19 Pandemic is Impacting Pharma Sales Interactions with Healthcare Providers | Blog

May 15, 2020

With the world facing an unprecedented health crisis, one group shouldering the brunt of the challenge is our healthcare workers, who are battling the threat from the front lines. Under the circumstances, their interactions with pharma sales representatives have naturally taken a back seat, with many healthcare providers closing down access. This reality is accelerating pharma firms’ shift toward a virtual sales organization, and not only for the short term.

The amount of time, access, and influence hospitals have been willing to grant pharma sales reps has been dropping for quite some time now, and face-to-face engagements have declined significantly over the years. According to a survey from DRG’s 2019 annual ePharma Physician Report, 54 percent of physician respondents said they saw pharma reps in person in 2019, down from 67 percent in 2018.

DRG ePharma Physician Report 2019 – % of physician respondents on pharma rep interactions

Source: ePharmaPhysician® US 2019

Today, given the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare providers, including hospitals and clinics, are increasingly refusing in-person visits from pharma sales reps, and pharma companies such as Biogen and Global Blood Therapeutics have themselves suspended face-to-face meetings. In turn, virtual interactions between reps and healthcare providers are increasing, with BMS, GSK, Pfizer, and Sanofi – to name a few – scaling up the use of remote technology to ensure continued engagement with healthcare professionals. We expect this progress to continue even after the pandemic’s threat has abated.

However, not all pharma firms are well equipped for this shift; there’s a wide degree of variance when it comes to the maturity of their virtual healthcare provider engagement capabilities. Not surprisingly, the many digital solutions that exist in the current market can help them. Several software vendors and IT services providers have developed innovative CRM solutions, such as around personalized engagement, interactive detailing, and live video through intuitive mobile apps and web portals, in order to effectively engage healthcare providers virtually.

In response to the crisis, many vendors have recently begun to enhance product functionality. For instance, Veeva recently introduced new capabilities for remote drug sampling in Veeva CRM Engage Meeting. The company also announced several alliances for digital field engagement.

Yet, going forward, getting virtual sales right could be a major deciding factor for whether or not pharma firms are able to convert extensive R&D efforts and patent wins into commercially successful therapies.

Here are our suggestions on how pharma firms can successfully pivot to a virtual sales :

Realign budgets Drive C-suite endorsement of initiatives whose goal is improving virtual engagement with healthcare practitioners. Money saved on aspects such as travel and organizing marketing conferences/gatherings should be diverted to investments in IT and content creation.

Engage technology partners to have the right solutions in place Assess the landscape of solutions from Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and IT services providers. Look for verticalized CRM solutions meant particularly for healthcare provider engagement. Prioritize quickly implementable and scalable solutions that give the assurance of little downtime and offer omni-channel (email, web, mobile, etc.) and personalized engagement.

Create compelling content Rethink marketing strategies. Content delivered virtually needs to be all the more engaging, detailed, and easy to consume. Such content could include live videos, webinars, intuitive brochures, and web/mobile portals. Generating personalized content can improve conversion rates. Finally, content needs to be such that healthcare providers can consume it in their own time and follow up on as needed, minimizing the need for live interactions.

Train representatives to effectively engage and deliver information in virtual settings Facilitate a cultural shift in sales operations from being in-person to virtual through dedicated training programs. Representatives need to utilize the time saved on travel to draft strategies for more engaging interactions. They also need to be trained on using specific technology tools for provider engagement.

While healthcare workers are bound to be overburdened and under tremendous stress in these times, this is also a tough time for pharma sales representatives. Assertive sales behavior might come across as being insensitive, but at the same time, healthcare practitioners need to be kept aware of new therapies for ailments apart from COVID-19. Shifting to a virtual model represents a huge change. Engaging with empathy and showing flexibility in working around physician schedules will be paramount in the near term, as pharma enterprises come to grips with what could potentially be a new, or next, normal.

Pharma Service Providers’ Role in Tempering Pricing Wars | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

September 21, 2017

Shortly after the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approved Novartis’ CAR T-cell drug, Kymriah – which is used for pediatric B-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia – last month, Novartis announced its price…a whopping $475,000 per patient. This is certainly not the first market instance of highly expensive drugs (see below.)

But it might just be the tipping point for stakeholders – including regulatory bodies, payers, physicians, advocacy groups, and patients – to start having constructive discussions with drug manufacturers on how to make drugs that treat extremely rare diseases more accessible to the very small share of the population that needs them.

It is certainly time for pharma companies to overhaul their operations in order to mitigate price anger and get such drugs into the hands of those whose lives depend on them.

One way they can do so is by employing pay-for-performance, or outcome-based, contracts, wherein the manufacturer charges for the drug once it proves effective, say one or two months into treatment. Note that this pricing model hasn’t yet really taken off, especially in the United States, where the fragmented multi-payer environment acts as an added roadblock. Indication-based pricing, wherein there are different prices for different conditions, is another model that biopharma companies can use, but the U.S. market does not have mechanisms in place for it, at least as of now.

Other ways of ensuring patients are able to benefit from such critical drugs are through mixes of personalized offline and online marketing campaigns directed specifically to the relevant patient and physician pool, and improved and comprehensive patient support programs to help in solving “last mile connectivity” issues.

But at the end of the day, stakeholder backlash might – and should – force pharma companies to drive down their own costs to make these expensive, personalized medicines more affordable. And this is where outsourcing service providers can help.

The third-party service providers that are already servicing the pharma industry need to prepare or bolster solutions and capabilities around areas including patient and market access, data analytics, omnichannel marketing, IoT, automation, portals, applications, customer support, pricing analytics, infrastructure modernization, and cloud orchestration. Service providers that are struggling to enter the life sciences space should view this as a window of opportunity to get a foot in the door of these companies. Doing so will mean additional business for both these types of vendors; it could also mean reduced pricing pressure for the patients who need such vital treatments.
The future of personalized medicine depends a lot on success of such drugs, and biopharma companies can no longer afford to sit back and operate like they always have. For a detailed discussion and analysis around these solutions, and to learn about other trends in the life sciences market, look out for our soon-to-be-published State of the Market Report.

Technology is the Key to Innovation in Pharmacovigilance | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

July 12, 2017

The critical nature of Pharmacovigilance (PV) is obvious. For patients, it can mean the difference between better health or death from an Adverse Drug Reaction (ADR). For pharma companies, it can mean the difference between a profitable, life-saving drug, or multi-billion dollar fines and loss of reputation and revenue.

Although global PV spend has increased from 0.3 percent of total sales in 2003 to 1 percent (the equivalent of ~US$15 billion) in 2016, some of the pharma industry’s most expensive drug recalls/fines/lawsuits occurred during this timeframe.

Everest Group does not think that a further increase in PV spend is the best way for pharma companies to curb safety breaches. Rather, we believe the answer lies in creating a more effective PV process through use of technology, including analytics, automation, cloud, and mobility.

There are some well-publicized technology use cases in the pharma industry. For example, led by a consortium of world-leading experts from industry, regulatory agencies, and academia, the Web-RADR project will deliver an EU-wide mobile phone app that enables users to report adverse drug reactions directly to their National Competent Authority (NCA). And the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has launched Sentinel, a distributed data system through which it can rapidly and securely access information from large amounts of electronic healthcare data from a diverse group of data partners.

And there are myriad ways in which technology can support pharma companies’ PV initiatives. For example:

Digitized medicines: Smart pills with ingestible sensors can be used to track and collect patients’ health data, which can be used to run analytics for Adverse Event (AE) detection.

Mobile apps: These apps can enable pharma companies to collect ADR data much more quickly.

Cloud-based solutions: Cloud-based databases can enable pharma companies to collect data from multiple stakeholders to build an integrated ADR repository – even at a global level.

Artificial intelligence (AI): AI can help pharma companies to move beyond basic automation by identifying patterns in unstructured data.

Automation: RPA solutions can help pharma companies process structured data much more rapidly than via manual efforts.

Big data analytics: Analytics can help pharma companies use the vast amount of digital data available on the Internet (e.g., on Facebook and Twitter, and in patient forums such as Doctissimo) to supplement traditional data sources such as primary calls, EHR data, and claims data for AE detection.

Proactive PV: Robust IT solutions and advanced systems can help pharma companies monitor drug safety during the research and trials process and post-launch.

How Pharma companies capitalize on technology?

To fully capitalize on the benefits technology can deliver to the PV process, pharma companies must begin with establishing a clear and robust strategy for what they want to achieve and how they should progress along the technological curve. For instance, if their end-goal is to implement an AI-based solution, they should first invest in basic automation, analytics, and cloud. As pharma companies tend to lag behind those in other industries in terms of adopting new and innovative methods, they may find it valuable to partner with a third-party advisor to assist in the development of their strategy.

Next, they should proactively identify opportunities and partner with specialized technology vendors to fill technology gaps. For example, while many pharma companies are investing in the development of mobile-based adverse event reporting apps, they will not be able to realize their full potential until all the apps are connected with a common platform that precludes patients from having to download apps for each drug.

Finally, they should strongly consider partnering with outsourcing service providers that have a proven history of supporting the delivery, technology, and regulatory reporting requirements of the PV process. Call center, case entry, literature review and insights mining, aggregate reporting, and PV quality assurance are some of the areas in which outsourcing service providers can of great help.

Pharma companies have long been slow to adopt technology in PV. However, the time has come for technology to play a greater role in delivering solutions, with technology vendors and outsourcing service providers serving as force multipliers.

For detailed insights on new technological innovations in the PV market, please refer to Everest Group’s viewpoint: Innovation in Pharmacovigilance (PV): How to Spend Smarter Not Higher?

Remedy for Threat to US Pharmaceutical Industry’s Profitability | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

April 20, 2017

US pharmaceutical companies may be counting their lucky stars now that healthcare reform is a dead issue for the time being. But they shouldn’t. They are still very vulnerable to increasing political pressure from the Trump Administration. The good news is there are actions these companies can take in the face of this pressure, and these actions are equally applicable by companies in other industries.

Pharma’s Vulnerability

The pharmaceutical industry is an attractive target for the new Administration to attack. The Administration may not be able to get all its legislation passed, but it still has substantial ability to affect public opinion and utilize substantial power over many industries, healthcare being primary at this time. Pharmaceutical companies are a case in point. Here’s why:

Pharma BPO: What Justifies Premium Resource Pricing? | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

April 5, 2017

The global pharma industry, hit hard by the rise of generics and the patent cliff on branded drugs, has been in cost-cutting mode, especially since the beginning of this decade.

With the rising costs of R&D and new drug development, pharma corporations began looking at streamlining manufacturing operations through Contract Manufacturing Organizations (CMO) and de-risking their R&D efforts via Contract Research Organizations (CRO).

CROs, which were initially sought out by pharma companies to cope with ad hoc/transient requirements such as additional capacity, have now emerged to cater to a whole host of services in the pharma outsourcing construct. These include clinical trial management, clinical data management, medical/clinical writing, bio- statistical programming, pharmacovigilance, and regulatory report writing.

Offshoring has also gained considerable traction in the last few years. Indeed, many global pharma giants have increasingly looked to low-cost locations such as India, as evidenced by the establishment of various home-grown CROs and Indian arms of global CROs, and some Tier 1 Indian BPO providers’ scaling up their capabilities in this space.

Given their nature and complexity, pharma industry processes typically command a substantial FTE cost premium over judgment-based sub processes in functional areas. For example, the following chart compares Clinical Trial Management FTE costs within those in Financial Planning and Analysis and Procurement Outsourcing.

Typical price variation: FP&A, Sourcing and Clinical Trial Management services

What’s behind these premium prices?

Skill profile: Even in the fairly early stages of outsourcing, pharma companies entrust some of their core work, such as clinical research, pre-clinical trial management, and certain activities in drug discovery, to their service providers. The necessary niche skill-sets typically require a background in clinical research, medicine, biotech, etc. Thus, the FTE rates are higher than those for even highly educated business analysts.
Nature of deals/projects: Pharma projects are relatively shorter in tenure than those in other BPO functions, especially deals involving medical writing and bio-statistical programming, where average tenure may range from four to eight months. Thus, the average utilization is significantly lower. This lower hour base to recover costs/margins leads to a higher hourly billing rate.
Service provider margins: While the highly mature and commoditized F&A, HR, and Procurement outsourcing markets have margins in the 10-20 percent range, pharma BPO is still relatively nascent and thus commands margins of25-50 percent.
Technology cost: In some deals, we’ve seen pharma BPO service providers bearing the cost of technology licensing, which further increases the FTE pricing.
We expect that pharma BPO will likely continue commanding a premium pricing compared to other BPO functions for two key reasons.

First, pharma companies are gaining increased confidence from strengthening clinical and medical infrastructure and the stabilizing regulatory and business environment in India. This is resulting in outsourcing more core activities such as the entire spectrum of services pertaining to drug discovery and development. And second, Indian CROs and BPO providers are augmenting their capabilities to move beyond pharmacovigilance, bioequivalence, and bioavailability services, and challenging global CROs in areas such as end-to-end drug discovery and product development.

What’s your take on the premium pricing in the pharma BPO industry? Is it justified?

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Tag: Pharma