“There have been several speculations about the stationary growth of the pharmaceutical industry, but recent technological advancements are expected to encourage the growth of this industry in the years to come.”
The recent population shift to urban areas and increasing accessibility of people to healthcare services has opened the doors for companies in the pharmaceutical industry to a broader target market. These emerging markets are becoming extremely important for pharma companies. However, for companies in the pharmaceutical industry, it becomes very essential to shift from a sales and marketing-focused model to an access-driven commercial model. Additionally, with healthcare becoming a priority for governments in several countries, the pharmaceutical industry seems to have a bright future. But on the flip side, there are several factors like consumer attitudes, drug availability, affordability, policies of governments, which might not entirely be in the favor of pharma companies and are challenging the growth of the pharmaceutical industry. In this article, we have talked about several critical pharmaceutical industry challenges and have highlighted steps that will help companies to combat each of those challenges.
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Top challenges in pharmaceutical industry
Challenge 1: Demand Forecasting
One of the biggest challenges companies in the pharmaceutical industry face is to devise reliable market forecasts and enhance the customer service levels, which is due to inefficient demand forecasting. Demand forecasting is an essential component for the pharma companies to stay ahead in the competition and match the supply to demand. Additionally, ensuring that all the goods are produced at the desired time and delivered seamlessly poses a big challenge to the pharma companies. The inconsistency and errors in the supply process is a significant hurdle that companies in the pharmaceutical industry are facing.
Quantzig’s solution: Predictive analytics solution to help in better demand forecasting
With expertise in offering effective predictive analytics solutions, Quantzig specializes in transforming the demand forecasting process and making it more efficient. By leveraging proprietary predictive analytics techniques and combining the internal and external data available, including consumer data, pricing data, stock exchange data, and others, Quantzig promises to cater to this challenge effectively.
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Challenge 2: Price Fluctuation Assessment
A recent analysis of the pharmaceutical industry shows that many big players in the industry are poised to witness tough times due to digitization, which is changing the market landscape constantly along with the trends in the pharmaceutical industry. This has escalated the need for proper techniques to analyze pricing structures because pricing is the key to boost profitability. Analyzing shifting customer interests and fluctuating prices is one of the very big hurdles faced by companies operating in the pharmaceutical industry today.
Quantzig’s solution: Pricing analytics solution to assess the pricing strategy effectively
Quantzig’s pricing analytics solution can help gain real-time insights into the pricing scenario and make proactive decisions. Furthermore, our pricing analytics solutions can help firms to estimate the impact of pricing on the volume of sales. With the help of pricing analytics, companies can gain a clear and precise understanding of the customer base and their expectations on pricing. Quantzig offers pricing analytics solutions that can help companies in the pharmaceutical industry to identify new opportunities for revenue generation.
Challenge 3: Patient Journey Analysis
Today, customers’ preference for cost-effective products is a serious cause of concern for companies in the pharmaceutical industry. Therefore, it becomes important for the pharmaceutical industry players to ensure that new therapies are economically as well as clinically better than the alternatives. Besides, the increasing number of health issues is pushing the pharmaceutical industry players to provide promising solutions with the best quality. Thus, conducting an analysis of the patient’s journey, understanding the payer, provider, and perspectives of the patient becomes very crucial and challenging to fully understand the treatment drivers, barriers, and disease flow.
Quantzig’s solution: Real world analytics solution to properly analyze patient journey
Quantzig provides real-world analytics services that enable pharma companies to formulate better engagement strategies for both physicians and patients. Furthermore, Quantzig’s multi-stakeholder and dimensional patient journey analysis approach helps companies in the pharmaceutical industry to discover and quantify the key transition points along the continuum of care for patients. Also, it provides comprehensive insights on patient adherence, treatment pathways, disease progression, and drug safety.
Quantzig’s analytics solutions can help pharma companies drive sales and profit margins using data. Request a Free demo for detailed insights.
Challenge 4: Risk Management
Managing risks in the manufacturing process and quality systems is of prime importance in the pharmaceutical industry. Every product and process are associated with risks. So, for pharma companies, it becomes very important to maintain product quality throughout the product’s life cycle. Hence, it becomes challenging for companies in the pharmaceutical industry to identify the possible risks associated with a product or the processes used to manufacture, develop, and distribute the product.
Quantzig’s solution: Big data analytics solution to devise robust risk management strategies
With Quantzig’s big data analytics solutions, companies in the pharmaceutical industry can improve their ability to monitor and measure whether medications are being used as prescribed. Also, they can analyze the number of drugs manufactured against market demand data and supply data. Pharmaceutical industry firms can make use of big data analytics to enhance customer experience, innovate products, and devise robust risk management strategies to aid them in making better business decisions and improving their market position. Pharma companies can also leverage big data analytics to improve margins as the volume increases and decreases inventory write-downs.
Combating these pharma industry challenges without expert assistance and in-depth insights is an uphill task. Request for more information to learn how we can help you.
Challenge 5: Inventory Management
Factors like rising customer expectations, policy reforms, and slowdowns in the biosimilars market are posing a threat to pharma companies. For companies in the pharmaceutical industry, keeping track of their inventory, meeting constantly changing regulations, providing promising solutions with the utmost quality, and balancing risks associated with inventory shortages and gluts is very challenging.
Quantzig’s solution: Inventory analytics solution to optimize inventory efficiently
Quantzig’s inventory analytics solution helps pharma companies to identify items that are trending toward being out of stock. Also, companies can use inventory analytics to ensure efficient item distribution, flag obsolete items, and identify critical spare parts. This helps in managing the supply chain efficiently and establishing a loyal relationship with customers.
The Impact of challenges of pharmaceutical industry:
Challenges for pharmaceutical industry have far-reaching impacts, affecting not only the industry itself but also global healthcare systems and patients. Here are five significant impacts:
1. Delayed Drug Development:
Regulatory hurdles, clinical trial complexities, and stringent safety requirements often lead to delayed drug development. This delays the availability of new and potentially life-saving treatments for patients, impacting healthcare outcomes and costs.
2. Escalating Costs:
The high cost of research and development, coupled with stringent regulatory requirements, drives up the price of pharmaceuticals. This results in expensive medications and reduced accessibility, which can burden healthcare systems and limit patient access to essential treatments.
3. Intellectual Property and Generic Competition:
The pharmaceutical industry heavily relies on patents, which provide a limited period of exclusivity. Generic competition following patent expiration can significantly impact the sales and revenue of pharmaceutical companies.
4. Public Health Impact:
Challenges like counterfeit drugs, drug shortages, and inadequate access to medications can have dire public health consequences. Patients may receive substandard or counterfeit drugs, while shortages can lead to compromised care and even fatalities.
5. Global Health Equity:
Disparities in drug availability and affordability impact global health equity. Lower-income populations may struggle to access life-saving medications, exacerbating healthcare disparities.
In conclusion, pharmaceutical industry problems ripple throughout healthcare systems, affecting drug development, costs, accessibility, intellectual property, public health, and global health equity. Addressing these pharmaceutical industry challenges is crucial to ensuring accessible, affordable, and safe pharmaceuticals for all.
