Constantly evolving in the face of advances in medicine and evolving regulations, the pharmaceutical sector must constantly renew itself and new professions are emerging. Find the decryption of Health experts. 

The pharmaceutical industry, a growing sector 
All markets combined, the pharmaceutical sector is growing steadily by 6% per year. 

According to the geographic zones, the disparities are however significant: on mature markets, the regression is perceptible, while on emerging zones such as Asia, the Maghreb, the Near and the Middle East or America Latin growth explodes.

Despite the progress of research and medicine, the difficulties of the sector are to discover new effective drugs in a short time and to be able to market them quickly on the market while respecting regulatory constraints that are not yet standardized internationally.

Innovation, a major challenge for pharmaceutical laboratories
An important growth lever for manufacturers is the creation of biomedicines. These treatments intended to combat rare diseases have led to the emergence of biotechnology companies promoting the conquest of niche markets.

In addition, faced with the increasing weight of generic drugs on the market, linked to policies to reduce health costs and reimbursement of drugs, pharmaceutical companies can now be penalized in their growth on internal medicine molecules. Their main challenge today is, therefore, the development of molecules in therapeutic areas such as oncology, immunology and neurology.

Today, the global health bill is increasing. The habits and needs of patients evolve over time, and with changes in lifestyles. What will the pharmaceutical world of tomorrow look like, what will our relationships be with our doctors, what diseases will we face? Listed below are some of 2020 pharma trends.

1. More and more chronic diseases

The number of chronic disease cases will be increased. First of all, a little reminder if you miss the term “chronic illness”: the diseases qualified as “chronic” are the diseases for which there is no cure, or which cannot be treated quickly. If the symptoms of the disease eventually disappear after a long treatment, they are very likely to reappear one day.

Chronic diseases include: diabetes, severe epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, paraplegia, multiple sclerosis, gout, allergies, asthma, the list goes on! This phenomenon of increase will prevail worldwide, and the value of treatments will also be increased. The pharmaceutical industry will then have to think about reducing its prices and focusing on sales volumes, so that it can continue to be accessible to many countries.

2. Adoption of electronic medical records

The adoption of electronic medical records will allow the pharmaceutical industry to better target effective products, to abandon the more expensive products that work least. This is called the measurement of pharmaco-economic performance.

3. A master self-medication

More drugs will be available without a prescription, and treatments that were once administered in the hospital will be available at home. The growing autonomy of patients will force the pharmaceutical industry to develop new modes of information and support for self-medication. New pharmaceutical services are likely to emerge, such as home delivery of medicines.

4. An increase in online prescription

Today in Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, 70% of doctors prescribe medicines electronically. The European Union encourages this practice because it makes it possible to avoid prescription errors, but also to facilitate the choice of prescription by providing the doctor with adequate clinical and financial data.

5. Prevention rather than cure

More and more governments will prioritize prevention over the distribution of treatment, in order to better manage care. The pharmaceutical industry will then have to work on the reconstruction of its image, damaged by professionals and patients who no longer trust it …

Conclusion

To respond to developments in the sector and increasingly drastic regulations, we note the emergence of new professions, notably in compliance / DMOS or transparency . Similarly, faced with the therapeutic benefits of new molecules and their side effects, health authorities are today extremely vigilant and marketing authorizations are therefore more rare.

This phenomenon is generating strong growth in the deployment of pharmacovigilance and medical information services . Finally, to offset the market transformations, the medical visit has been strongly impacted in recent years, and has favored the development of MSL and Nurse Consulting positions, thus providing scientific support and expertise to doctors.

References

“The Growing Pharmaceuticals Market: Expert Forecasts and Analysis,” The Business Research Company, May 16, 2018.

“Artificial Intelligence in the Pharmaceutical Industry – An Overview of Innovations,” Dec. 19, 2018, Emerj website.

“Virtual repurposing can speed the discovery of new uses for existing drugs,” by Inga Peter, STAT, Jan. 11, 2019.

“Advances in AI and ML are reshaping healthcare,” by Megh Gupta and Qasim Mohammad, TechCrunch, March 16, 2017.

“Drug Scheduling,” DEA website.