Can Big Pharmas hiring of digital execs actually ‘reimagine medicine’?

Reimagination or hallucination? In recent weeks, both Glaxo Smith Kline and now Novartis have hired digital analytics and marketing executives out of non-healthcare businesses to lead their digital transformation. For GSK, Karenann Terrell joined in the new position of chief digital and technology officer from six years as chief information officer for Walmart and CIO for pharma Baxter International. From Sainsbury’s Argos, Bertrand Bodson will be assuming the chief digital officer title at Novartis without any previous healthcare experience.

Both are expected to be transformative, disruptive, and ‘reimagine medicine’. Ms. Terrell’s experience and accomplishments appear to be the closest fit to her GSK’s job expectations of integrating digital, data, and analytics strategy with enhancing clinical trials and drug discovery, as well as improving professional and consumer interactions. Novartis’ mission for Mr. Bodson aims even higher. In addition to these, he will be ‘transforming our business model using digital technologies’, ‘reimagine (sic) medicine by leveraging digital on behalf of millions of patients and practitioners’, and ‘leading cultural change’.

Both companies have good starts in advanced technologies–GSK in AI, sensor technologies for managing COPD, and a medical device mobile app; Novartis with ‘smart pill’ Proteus, a pilot with heart medication Entresto tied to monitoring and coaching, and through its Alcon subsidiary with Google, a wired-up contact lens that detects blood glucose [TTA 17 July 14]. However, this last appears to be stalled in trials and Alcon on the block. According to the FT, Novartis is feeling the pressure to develop more digital partnerships, such as Novo Nordisk’s teaming with Glooko and Sanofi with Verily Life, all in diabetic management. Acquisitions may also be the way forward.

A significant impediment to all this integration is consumer and professional trust. If too closely tied to a pharmaceutical company or appearing to be too self-serving, remote monitoring and counseling may not be trusted to be in the patient’s (or doctor’s) best interest or objective as to better approaches. The overuse of analytics, for instance in counseling or patient direction, may be perceived as violating patient privacy–creeping out the patient isn’t helpful. The bottom line: will these digital technologies serve the patient and maintain medical best practices–or best serve the pharmaceutical company’s interests?

This Editor doesn’t question these individuals’ ability, but the organizations’ capability for change. But count this Editor as a skeptic on whether one or two digital execs can marshal the bandwidth and the internal credibility to transform these lumbering, complex, regulated, and long cycle businesses. Big Retail is fast moving by comparison. PMLive 31 July (GSK), 13 Sept (Novartis)  Hat tip to TTA alumna Toni Bunting

Towards 2020: Big Tech developments predicted to impact healthcare delivery

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Gartner-curve.png” thumb_width=”175″ /]Healthcare doesn’t stand outside major technology trends, and two we’ve covered extensively are machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), which this Editor observed [TTA 3 Feb] may beat out Massive Data Crunchers like IBM Watson Health for many diagnoses. What has been ‘bubbling up’ in the past year is blockchain, the technology behind bitcoin which is a ‘distributed, secure transaction ledger’ that uses a private key. Each record block has an identifying hash that links each block into a virtual chain [TTA 16 July]. Brian Ahier, Director of Standards and Government Affairs at Medicity, Aetna’s data analytics/population health subsidiary, predicts in Health Data Management that both will be the Big Trends for the next three years, with a substantial discussion behind both, particularly AI (though citing global equity funding of $1.5 bn in AI for healthcare since 2012 seems a paltry reinforcement). There are links to two blockchain studies from Deloitte and IEEE (requires subscription or purchase) for further reference. Two other bonuses: a link to New School’s Melanie Swan’s blockchain blog with four potential uses in healthcare and a Gartner hype cycle chart (left above) identifying both machine learning and blockchain (distributed ledger) near the peak of the curve. His third trend, digital transformation, is less a trend than an admonition that our present business structures need to change, that they must realize the potential of fully utilizing data, and to consider the customer experience.