Turning 33,000 Employees into an Agile Pharma Start-up
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (PRWEB) May 22, 2018 -- Digital is changing almost every aspect of healthcare including pharmaceutical manufacturing and distribution. Digital therapeutics may be the future for pharma.
A recent Business of Healthcare interview explored the impact on product development and commercialization. BOH interviews serve an audience of 19,000 senior executives across the entire $3.6 trillion (2017) healthcare sector.
“I think a lot of pharmaceutical companies should be watching out for digital therapeutics,” says Daniel J. Gandor, Director of Digital Innovation for Takeda Pharmaceuticals U.S.A., Inc. Gandor leads digital innovation for Takeda.
Takeda has been aggressive in adapting its culture to change. “Our CEO wants us to act like a 33,000-person startup and sometimes the best way to learn is to work with people who are start-ups. By doing that it has helped imbue a sentiment of agility and experimentation and willingness to try that I think has really grown and flourished over the last several years,” says Gandor
“There are certainly startups out there that say our app or our digital platform can be just as effective or efficacious as taking a pill and so maybe five ten years from now we as a pharmaceutical may not be just selling our pill but it may be a pill with a companion app or a companion diagnostic,” adds Gandor.
Brad Ansley, Director of SPI Health, points digital trends like these are dramatically changing how pharma sales works. “One of the challenges we see is being able to assimilate all that information and be able to put it into a dialogue that helps solve a critical business issue as opposed to sell the product.” SPI Health is Sales Performance International's dedicated life sciences practice.
“I think the challenge is the ‘That's how we've always done it’ syndrome,” adds Ansley.
“Getting the commercial side of the sales team to actually change behavior is a tough thing.” SPI Health helps some of the world's leading life sciences companies overcome the change, challenge and disruption that's going on in the marketplace today.
Takeda’s digital has progressed to using digital devices in clinical trials. Gandor shares, “We've done a really interesting partnership with Connexa putting wearables into early stage clinical trials.” The work leads to new data from the clinical grade wearable about patients in the trials. Up to now, those data have been mostly limited to what is collected when the trial participant visits their doctor.
As new capabilities become available, suppliers must change their approach to sales. Says Ansley, “Trying to adjust to the changes in expectations of the health care marketplace requires new competencies and proficiency levels of each sales competency. We end up with a skyline competency model we use to measure and close those competency and proficiency gaps.”
Watch the interview at http://www.BOHSeries.com or listen by searching for ‘Business of Healthcare’ in your favorite podcast app.
Matthew Hanis, Business of Healthcare, http://www.BOHSeries.com, 6365375454, [email protected]
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