5 Key Trends Driving Clinical Trial Innovation
By Bryan Hill, Chief Technology Officer, Cadient, a Cognizant Company
With the rise in emerging technologies and advancements, the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry is rapidly going through transformation, where organizations are dependent on successful drug or pharmaceutical-related launches to drive profitability and growth. A recent study showed that two-thirds of a sample of 210 launches failed to meet pre-launch consensus sales expectations for their first year on the market. Coupled with evolving consumer experiences, business models and marketing approaches – organizations, specifically brand launch teams and marketing agencies, need to work together and refocus their strategies in order to cater to this shift and ensure a successful launch.
As clinical trials teams attempt to embrace these changes, the broader healthcare system is also racing to deliver value in a digital environment marked by an increased focus on automation, measurement and performance. Companies can succeed at getting a launch right the first time by focusing on five key trends and critical areas that will drive launch success and innovation: on-demand services, scalable and flexible platforms, B2B disruption, measurement that matters, and a state of constant innovation.
1) On-Demand Services
As a growing range of “on-demand” consumer services continues to increase – from Uber to Amazon Pantry – the healthcare and life sciences industry is also in the process of witnessing a similar transformation. This new set of “services on-demand” are characterized by technologies and applications that enable consumers to address their health needs at a touch of a button. For example, there are technologies available today where consumers can request a physician for a house call visit to care for a range of common illnesses that make going to the doctor’s office difficult, such as fever, flu, stomach ache, sore throat and sports injuries. As a result, this type of on-demand thinking is already paving ways for potential in clinical trial innovation in areas such as recruitment, engagement and retention.
2) Scalable and Flexible Platforms
A powerful outcome of the “on-demand services” framework mentioned earlier, is that clinical trial teams now have access to new levels of scalability and flexibility. This new model paves a path to a scalable future, where Contract Commercial Organizations (CCOs) are handling a variety of marketing tasks for an organization, resulting in a more efficient and streamlined approach around hiring, managing and executing what would be an increasingly automated and technologically driven marketing environment. As a result, increased flexibility around staffing decisions and the ability to hire end-to-end service providers can enable teams to stay focused on key strategies and metrics. Additionally, accessibility to a broader set of leading-edge expertise can accelerate go-to-market activities and expansion of global reach.
3) B2B Driven By B2C
E-commerce has radically transformed consumer expectations across a wide range of industries. Currently, 69 percent of U.S. consumers are regularly buying products online, and e-commerce growth is projected to grow from $334 billion to $480 billion by 2019. As a result, employees working and selling in a B2B environment are increasingly bringing their B2C expectations with them into the workplace. The healthcare industry has been sheltered for quite some time, from the influence of B2C user experience. This is due to a number of factors, including opaque pricing, complicated delivery methods and layers upon layers of insurance paperwork. However, the lack of B2C user experience within the healthcare and life sciences industries is creating a pathway to an increasingly sophisticated set of expectations and platforms.
For clinical trial teams, the impact of B2C thinking opens up all types of possibilities, and requires teams to focus on strategies to reach their target audiences – whether it is trial investigators or enrolled patients – and deliver complex information to them in a meaningful way. This can be accomplished with forms automation, simplifying the process of completing documents in a streamlined approach, such as depositing a check to the bank by taking a picture of it from a smartphone. Additionally, target audiences can also be reached by incorporating visual methods and techniques like infographics and interactive animations including quizzes, trial simulations and the use of interactive tablets.
4) Measurement That Matters
With the growing centrality of measurement and data, comes a growing recognition that staffing needs for clinical trial teams must be seriously upgraded. This includes an increasing focus on sophisticated data analysts, as well as strong working knowledge of data by team leaders. Not only does the staff need to be comfortable with all varieties of data, both big and small, but also will need to be armed with insight platforms that give them the ability to track patient and trial activity in a unified view. For clinical teams, the ability to design, execute, and optimize a program fueled and optimized by metrics, has become absolutely critical to success.
5) State of Constant Innovation
To remain competitive in the marketplace, the industry is starting to see leading key players create innovation labs in order to keep pace with the rapidly evolving digital landscape. These include open communities of professionals and students coming together to develop solutions that address real-world scenarios and challenges, or a “Shark Tank” inspired theme where participants can share concepts for the next big consumer health breakthrough. In addition, for clinical trials teams who are aiming to launch in the next 12 to 18 months, preparing for a commercial and customer environment filled with digital innovations will be a key driver for success. Moving forward, these are the types of approaches that are valuable in defining a culture of innovation to attract investors and talent, in order to fund and deliver on next-generation services and products.
Conclusion
As the healthcare and life sciences industry continues to thrive and innovate in today’s increasingly digital environment, successful trials will be marked by a spirit of collaboration, curiosity, digital knowledge, and patient and investigator engagement. Teams that embrace digital platforms, approaches and metrics will realize better recruitment, engagement and retention, while also seeing better cost efficiencies.