Intelligent pharma: How patients and caregivers can benefit from advanced analytics

Marc Herlant, partner at management consultants Arthur D Little, provides an Expert View piece on the importance of advanced analytics in the process of developing and delivering pharmaceutical products.

Supply chain imperatives are evolving from drug production and delivery that are limited in scope towards a versatile supply chain addressing the needs of multiple stakeholders (such as caregivers, patients and insurance companies). The traditional supply chain approach based on materials requirement planning has progressed to its limits.

From the patient perspective, the current supply chain creates frustration and complications in individualized treatments, or even fails to offer satisfactory performance with new treatment types (for example, companion diagnostic, individualized dosage, combination therapies). From an industrial perspective, as new treatments become available, new types of supply chains need to be established, with new actors, as well as new technological and logistical systems. Managing these new treatments with traditional supply chain methods is costly and complex, with high risk of non compliance. Yet, while creating new challenges in terms of regulatory compliance and scaling, the incorporation of these players also provides significant opportunities in terms of data collection for advanced analytics.