The life sciences industry has experienced breakthroughs on multiple fronts over the past few years and 2019 was no different. The continued evolution of personalized medicine via cell and gene therapies, innovations in traditional business processes, and the realities of adopting new technologies were just a few of the most pressing issues for life sciences businesses this year. Before we move into 2020, I’m sharing our most read insights, case studies, and perspectives from this year.

Transforming R&D Operations for a Better Business

Success in the life sciences industry is born in research and development but even industry titans have seen plummeting returns on the massive investment they make in studying, testing, and creating therapeutic breakthroughs. As a means for shrinking that gap between investment and return, drug and device makers can tap into opportunities to unlock greater efficiencies and cost-savings throughout the R&D process.

Insights

Stepping Away from Convention in Clinical Trial Design
Transforming Global Clinical Supply Chain Master Planning
Breaking Down the Keys to Decentralized Clinical Trials

Navigating a Shifting Regulatory Landscape

It’s hard to imagine a day’s news in 2019 that didn’t touch on some aspect of drug pricing. As the voice of patients grew louder relative to medication costs, regulators and legislators felt the pressure to act. A number of state and federal laws have been drafted or enacted in 2019 to keep drug costs low, forcing life sciences businesses to navigate a new maze of regulatory interventions. Meanwhile, lawsuits around the opioid crisis and efforts to enforce new taxes have demonstrated a more active regulatory landscape – one that life sciences organizations will likely continue to face in the new year.

Insights

Drug Pricing Laws at the State and Federal Level
How the Medical Device Tax Affects Your Business

Leveraging the Power of Analytics

The sheer volume of data available to life sciences businesses affords considerable opportunities to leverage advanced analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence for efficiency, growth, and patient engagement. While the potential avenues for diving into analytics are nearly limitless, life sciences businesses can find sustainable analytics success with incremental proof of value cases that provide measurable and quantifiable outcomes. With a more mature analytics organization, businesses in the industry have been able to define new approaches to physician engagement, commercialization, competitive positioning, and more.

Insights

5 Drivers of Analytics Success in 2019
Using Analytics to Improve Drug Adoption

Adopting Therapeutic Breakthroughs into Business Modalities

In spite of the challenges and obstacles life sciences businesses have faced over the past year, the industry continues to do what it does best – create innovative, life-saving, and at times nearly miraculous treatments for diseases and conditions once considered fatal. 2019 saw businesses in the industry explore the operationalization of these next-generation therapies into legacy processes and systems, often requiring an entirely new business model from top to bottom.

Insights

What a Recent CRISPR Breakthrough Means for Therapeutics Companies
Solving Wholesale Distribution Challenges in Cell and Gene Therapy
How Femtech is Revitalizing the Medical Device Industry

Building Diversity and Inclusion into the Entire Business

Diverse and inclusive businesses continue to lead at the forefront of innovation, growth, and business performance. The need for diversity and inclusion outside of internal operations has become a greater area of focus for life sciences businesses as biases in drug development, genetic data, and computational algorithms have posed detrimental impacts to the efficacy of drugs for certain populations. Looking forward to 2020, organizations in the life sciences industry must continue making strides to embed diversity and inclusion across the entire business spectrum.

Insights

Enabling Diversity + Inclusion in the Workplace in 2019
The Importance of Diversity in Genetic Sampling
Using Effective Unconscious Bias Training to Promote Organizational Change

Enabling Sustainable and Value-Driven Technologies

A variety of factors have contributed to the life sciences industry being relatively slower to move to the cloud than other industries, including massive investments in existing on-premise solutions, concerns for the privacy and security of patient data, and the training and change management investment required to do so successfully. That said, as early adopters and forward-thinking businesses in the industry have realized, the view is more than worth the climb when it comes to cloud adoption and the implementation of enterprise platforms like SAP S/4HANA. Realizing these benefits, however, mandates that life sciences companies carefully consider the overarching strategy and place a substantial focus on the people side of the migration or implementation via a robust approach to training and change management.

Insights

Creating a Sustainable SAP S/4HANA Training Strategy
Building an Effective Cloud Migration Strategy

Creating Business Transformation

Companies across nearly every industry have been met with a strategic imperative to transform their business to survive in the modern landscape. Managing business transformation has only grown more complex with new expectations, technologies, and capabilities seemingly cropping up every day. While technology may drive the increase in complexities, the solutions are people-centric. A strongly aligned and united leadership team, carefully crafted vision, and well-positioned goals remain the imperatives to undergo effective business transformation.

Insights

4 Tips on Sustainable Change from Business Transformation Consultants
Transformational Leadership Characteristics Needed to Drive Business Change

What to Expect from Clarkston Consulting in 2020

In the year ahead, we’re excited to continue bringing our insights and case studies on the most relevant and impactful topics dominating the life sciences industry. Don’t hesitate to contact us and let us know which issues are challenging you or your business, or what interests you the most. Subscribe to our insights below to stay connected.