Five ways life sciences companies can keep up with demand

Vicki Pearson, global solutions architect, life sciences at  Schneider Electric, provides an Expert View on how firms can meet a growing demand while remaining affordable and accessible.

Trends in today’s population provide pharmaceutical companies with a dual-pronged challenge. On one side of the spectrum, the population is older, a recent United Nations study forecasted the 65+ age group is set to rise from 9% to 16% globally by 2050, and the 80+ age group is projected to triple. Yet, the same study shows around 30% of the population have no access to essential medicines. As people are living longer with better access to medicine, our reliance on medicine increases as we age as well. It is because of this combination that life science companies face a growing demand.

However, producing more medicine would be challenging as the manufacturing industry already faces disruption. McKinsey has found this to be ‘commonplace’ and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found there was a 66% shortage of all drugs due to failures in product or facility quality.