Pharma companies have never had a more positive attitude towards digital health companies. The new CEO at Novartis thinks of the Swiss drug developer as a drug and data science company. Roche has acquired two digital health companies — diabetes management business MySugr and oncology clinical decision support business Flatiron Health. GSK has 25 clinical trials using 17 digital health technologies.
But in the more than four years pharma companies such as Novartis and GSK have spent in building digital strategies that align with their respective brands, they have learned a lot of lessons some of it from failure. Many of these insights are common sense learnings that transcend industries and are particularly relevant to large, international corporations. Some of the knowledge they have gained has arisen from the way they collaborate with technology vendors. A panel discussion at the Eye for Pharma conference in Philadelphia this week illustrated some of those insights.
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Evolution of app development
For Andrew Ploszay, head of digital innovation and strategic partnerships at GlaxoSmithKline, there was a disconnect between apps developed to support their products and thinking through whether they were something patients actually wanted.
“I ran digital marketing and operations globally for GSK for a few years. I would say, and pharma is notorious at this stuff, I am extremely bearish on mobile applications. I have spent the last couple of years killing them all around the world at GSK. They were tactics in search of a strategy, not a single value proposition, just a brand manager saying ‘I just want to make some app like a dose calculator’ as if your customer actually was waking up thinking, ‘I needed that.’ Hundreds of apps are doing I don’t know what for anyone.”
Ploszay noted that although the company uses a few apps, it devotes much more consideration to the rationale for developing them based on three criteria: feasibility, desirability and commercial viability.
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Feasibility — Can we make it?
Desirability — Has someone said they want it and need it? Has even a small sample size been tested to quantify that?
Viability — What are the costs in terms of time, money, energy and resources to produce it? What tradeoffs would the company need to make to do this?
Identify problems first then the technology solution
Tara Cooke, executive director and IT global digital strategic partnership lead at Novartis said the company has learned what’s required for technology partnerships to work well.
“For technology companies, a lot of the time it is a desire to get the shiny object and pull that in. It is a caution I have for you guys. If you are just trying to pull in a new technology, you are probably not going to see the success of it…I would encourage technology vendors to look across their business capabilities and ask themselves, ‘Where can this add the most value? What is the problem I am trying to address?’ It is important to understand that you need to start with the problem.”
Carefully think through the questions that need to be asked to get the best data
The thirst for data is a major driver in the healthcare industry, spurring partnerships, acquisitions and bringing together some unlikley bedfellows. But a fundamental part of data collection is the tricky balance not only between enough data and too much but also getting the right data. And that means asking questions that help pharma companies achieve that. As Cooke noted, it is an issue that touches more issues such as opt-in, data storage and working with consumers.
“If your opt-in criteria are too narrow, you won’t be able to use that data for other [projects],” she said. “What are the questions you want to ask and answer so you are capturing the right data and not so much that you don’t know how to use it?”
Ploszay agreed and added that it’s better to spend more time than less on the questions to ask customers.
“There is an immense amount of data out there and it can be very challenging to limit yourself to a few questions that capture the data you want.”
Technology companies were also represented on the panel and had some advice for pharma companies. Jerard Berger, Samsung senior manager for health, encouraged pharma companies to increase their awareness in particular of the sensor technology in development that’s coming in the next four to five years.
“Understand what the capabilities are. Sensors for wearables will be measuring things that just aren’t possible now.”
