Pharma Marketing Digital Trends to Watch in 2020. A closer look at some of the future directions that Pharma Marketing need in 2020 to arm themselves for in full readiness for the next 12 Months

1. PHARMA
DIGITAL
TRENDS- 2020
David Reilly,
Let’s Learn Digital

2. ABOUT
DAVID
REILLY
20 years experience in digital marketing,
emerging technology and digital
transformation
Founder of Let’s Learn Digital, delivering
quality training and in digital transformation,
business strategy and emerging technologies
Sector experience includes Financial
Services, Insurance, Pharmaceuticals,
Utilities, Retail and Automotive
2

3. OUR VISION
Provide training that inspires knowledge,
understanding and new thinking about how
technology might shape business in the future

4. PURPOSE OF
THIS 2020
DIGITAL TRENDS
REPORT
Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence,
and Machine Learning are among
the emerging innovations that are
starting to transform the Pharma
industry in multiple ways
This 2020 digital trends report
examines the leading technologies
which are reshaping this sector by
bringing clarity to help readers
determine which emerging
technologies will drive the most
value in the pharmaceutical industry
and provides guidance around those
worth consideration

5. 1) ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE
(AI)
Over the last five years, the use of artificial
intelligence in the Pharma and Biotech
industries is delivering value in multiple
ways; developing new drugs, tackling
diseases, drug adherence, clinical trials
and extracting value from clinical data
While Pharma is full of data-rich
processes, we are currently at the
beginning of our understanding of how AI
can be applied efficiently to gather,
manage and intelligently utilise data. The
hunt for efficiencies is especially important
in an industry suffering from escalating
costs, as currently, it takes an average of
12 years and costs of $2bn to bring a drug
to market with most clinical trials being
unsuccessful
We believe the full deployment of Artificial
intelligence can help save more lives and
believe this is will be a key transformative
technology in the future

6. AI EXAMPLES
Excitement about AI has prompted a boom in
health-tech start-ups. In the UK, five new
government-funded AI technology centres
opened, London’s new Medical Imaging and
Artificial Intelligence Centre opened in Feb
prioritising AI pattern recognition software to
detect anomalies. Other notable AI Pharma
projects include:
Novartis and Microsoft (Oct 2019) announced a
multi-year research and development effort
focusing on AI exploration
AstraZeneca with Berg: evaluating novel ways of
treating Parkinson’s disease and other
neurological disorders.
Celgene and Exscientia sign AI drug discovery
deal in oncology
Pfizer using AI inhouse to mine patient data
stored anonymously in electronic medical
records
Startups include BenevolentAI use algorithms to
comb data, Insilicoo are using AI to design
treatments not yet found in nature or chemical
libraries and

7. 2) BLOCKCHAIN
AND
DISTRIBUTED
LEDGERS
The pharma industry is actively exploring
blockchain technology to help with several real
world user cases and is well suited to deliver future
value in the following ways:
Verifying the authenticity of returned drugs: drugs
are frequently returned to the pharmaceutical
manufacturers for example wholesalers ordering
excess inventory and needing to return unsold stock
to manufactures.
Supply chains: Blockchain technology provides the
pharmaceutical supply chain with a better way to
add compliance and governance. Due to its inherent
transparency, immutability and distributed nature it
provides a mechanism that enables all participants
in the supply chain to ensure that the logistics and
transportation guidelines are adhered to.
Provide transparency and traceability of consent in
clinical trials Blockchains provide a mechanism for
unfalsifiable time-stamping of consent forms,
storing and tracking the consent in a secure, and
publicly verifiable way, and enabling the sharing of
this information in real time.

8. 3)
MACHINE
LEARNING
Machine learning is a subset of AI, the most
common three types of ML being Unsupervised
Learning, Supervised Learning and Reinforcement
Learning. With techniques like LIME, local-
interpretable-model-agnostic explanations,
Machine Learning demonstrates clear model
reasoning, and efforts are underway to use
machine learning itself to label datasets.
As limitations lift, the opportunities for pharma and
health care will greatly expand. Those companies
that have already begun leveraging machine
learning will have the established base of
infrastructure and processes needed to take
advantage of these opportunities.
Machine learning will also increasingly become a
great tool for pharma R&D, if the most advanced
data infrastructures are in place, the right
questions are asked, important goals are set, and
enough data training is provided. If all these
conditions are met, trained machine learning
models will exponentially speed up the R&D
process.

9. 4) WEARABLE
DEVISES
Wearable technology in healthcare is
rapidly expanding with advanced
features that are anticipated to
provide major benefits. As wearable
technology becomes more disease-
specific with therapeutic and
diagnostic capabilities, it will
ultimately lower costs and increase
efficiencies (Source: GlobalData
2017)
In 2018, the wearable tech market
was worth nearly $23bn, and is
forecast to grow at a compound
annual growth rate of 19% to reach
$54bn by 2023. Although pharma
currently makes up a small
proportion of the wearable
technology space at present,
GlobalData predicts it will lead to a
fully integrated system into the
Pharma sector

10. 5) ALEXA AND
VOICE
In 2019 the UK Govt announced that the
NHS launched plans to collaborate with
Amazon Alexa and provide “reliable health
information from the NHS website through
voice-assisted tech” This signalled a major
shift in voice tech importance in health
and Pharma
Voice assistants have the opportunity to
change the sector in the areas of
adherence, distance care and education.
Pairing these connected devices with
scheduled tasks and reminders enables
care teams to track the adherence of
patients and loved ones.
Amazon’s voice recognition technology is
also getting compact enough to be
incorporated into pretty much anything.
This means that Alexa might be with you
at all times, while the smart glasses,
earbuds and ring give Amazon much
better location data with which to track
users. D

11. 6) CHAT BOTS
Many industries are exploring the use of
human-like chatbots and conversational
interfaces that can answer questions which
previously required human interaction.
The first and the apparent application of the
chatbot would be to provide practical
information to patients. It can enable companies
streamline the process of sharing information
with patients about health conditions, drug
procedure, proper drug usage, and information
about using medical devices. Chatbots can also
enable pharma companies to alleviate patients
from any fears of side-effects or anxiety about
the treatment.
The most crucial benefits for any pharma
company would be in the feedback loop which is
currently dependent on market research and
Awareness, Trial, and Usage studies (ATUs). This
relies on doctors answering selected questions,
whereas chatbots can provide insights about
customers or doctors across the entire journey.
Chatbots and conversational interfaces will make
be an important technology for the Pharma
industry in the future

12. 7) RISE OF
DIGITAL
THERAPEUTICS
Digital therapeutics are emerging as a
treatment option for certain mental health
diseases, including alcohol addiction, via
everything from digital therapists to the
gamification of addiction management. As
Pharma continues to test and exploit the
potential of new technologies, digital
therapeutics will become increasingly more
integrated into traditional drug therapies.
For many chronic conditions the drug
therapy is centred on disease
management, which requires real-time
monitoring and use of therapies.
Connected monitors for factors such as
blood sugar, for example, could support
with a more automated process for insulin
delivery, reducing the risk of hypo or
hyper-glycemia incidents and reducing the
need for as many home/or site visits, or
emergency admissions. We expect to see
more innovations in this category in the
year ahead

13. 8) INTERNET OF
THINGS (IOT)
The internet of things (IoT)
provides the Pharma industry
with a selection of fantastic new
opportunities, including better
control of drug manufacturing,
preventive maintenance of
equipment, and improved supply
chain management.
In particular, IoT sensors and
trackers can enable optimal
conditions for handling
biomaterials and chemicals,
ensuring flawless equipment
operation, and even assisting in
drug fraud prevention.

14. SENSORS AND
TAILORED 24/7
TREATMENT
Body sensors are a new
technology currently still in
clinical trials. These sensors
can either be placed on the
body or inside of it and
measure various critical vital
signs.
One sensor that’s already
being used is a digestible
sensor. These are sensors that
are inside of the pill and track
both the drug being digested
and how well the drug is being
absorbed into the body.
It has been seen to be
especially effective in
overseeing prescription
adherence with schizophrenia,
major depressive disorders,
and bipolar I disorder. One to
watch for 2020

15. AND
COMING
SOON

16. BRAIN-COMPUTER
INTERFACES
How about Facebook getting
into your head – literally?
We’ve covered progress being
made in braincomputer
interfaces before on Digital
Shift, and this is clearly a
technology for which it is
more a question of ‘when’, not
‘if’, it will happen. In
September 2019, Facebook
bought a ‘brain-machine-
interface’ startup called CTRL-
labs that is working on ways
for people to control devices
simply using brainpower. 46
At the moment, the
technology is designed to tap
signals that the brain is
sending to the hand via a
wristband worn by the user,
but Facebook believes that
this kind of technology could
revolutionise how we interface
with hardware. The acqui

17. FACEBOOK
PORTAL?
Facebook’s Portal device is a smart
screen/camera that can either
integrate with your TV or enable
video calling via a screen that is
larger than your phone. The smart
camera moves and pans to track
your movements meaning that users
can move around while speaking to
the person on the other end, and
the camera also automatically
widens if there are more people in
the shot, making family calls easier
to manage.
The potential for healthcare and
Pharma is Video calls can be made
via Messenger or WhatsApp, and the
hardware has Alexa built in meaning
that it can also be controlled by
voice. One to watch

18. QUANTUM
COMPUTING
Quantum computing focuses on
applying the principles of
quantum theory, which studies
the nature of energy and matter
at an atomic and subatomic
level, to the development
computing technology. The
reason why there is such an
investment of time and research
in the area is because a quantum
computer would represent a
huge leap forwards in computing
capability – some say that leap
would be greater than that from
the abacus to the modern-day
supercomputer.

19. Thank you
Our Digital Training:
https://www.letslearndigital.com/cours
es
David Reilly
david@letslearndigital.com
07989 985922