Back to pharma’s future

For those pharma companies still in the UK – after Brexit, COVID, economic turmoil and the ongoing NHS crisis – be assured, the future still holds promise.

There are many factors that continue to make the NHS an attractive market and collaboration opportunity – its size, stability and large patient base, a statutory commitment to quality healthcare, and the potential for R&D partnerships and large-scale clinical studies, with diverse patient demographics.

Collaboration with the NHS provides industry with huge contracts and, in many cases, a single payer and point of negotiation for pricing and reimbursement.

Historically – whether it’s been New Labour, the LibCons or the full-fat Tories – there has been a commitment to work with industry on healthcare innovation and research via a range of organisations and NGOs such as the Health Innovation Networks (HINs) and the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR).

There are also enduring noises of positivity about boosting the life sciences sector as a principal driver of UK GDP.

Expect these post-Brexit encouragements to continue.

And although it may not always feel like it, the NHS is a long-term organisation, thinking in years and sometimes decades about what it wants to achieve. This does align with wider corporate strategies.

Both sides are ultimately after sustainable solutions that provide value for patients and healthcare systems and that transform ways of doing healthcare, to allow new technological, pharmaceutical and healthcare practice developments to embed quickly and provide that long-term solution.

Finally, there’s NICE – perhaps the most widely-referenced HTA body, and one that sets the benchmark globally for clinical and cost-effectiveness. If you get NICE in the UK, the chances are, it will be nice elsewhere.

So, I hope we’ve established that, despite everything, there’s a lot of promise for pharma in the UK. In this article I’m going to look at seven areas to watch in NHS healthcare over the next decade, and attempt to convince you of the same.

Advancements in technology are revolutionising pharma, paving the way for unprecedented breakthroughs. AI and machine learning are transforming drug discovery processes, reducing costs and opening new avenues for exploring novel therapeutic targets.

Big data analytics allows for a more comprehensive understanding of patient populations.

Real-world evidence enables the development of personalised medicine tailored to individual genetic profiles, increasing treatment efficacy and minimising adverse reactions.

The NHS is incredibly into all this – setting out an ambition to have all NHS providers with a “mature digital foundation” and saying in its 2023 Digital Strategy: “In banking or retail, for example, digital has changed the entire business model.”

Adding: “Health and social care, by contrast, have changed how they provide services remarkably little. We must design inclusive services to benefit those whose health outcomes and outlook are poorest.”

In engagement terms, this means factor in tech solutions in your pathways. Ensure that it takes account of how patients are discovered, screened, treated and monitored and that the support services you offer are aligned, interoperable and compatible.

And data to create the case for change? There’s so much data available now – including at system level – on prevalence, cost, length of stay, speed, outcomes and variation – all of which can be triangulated to create the case for change.

My company Wilmington Healthcare helped one company insert a new product into NHS pathways using big data and increased service capacity by 80 per cent.

Real-world evidence is also going to be in the spotlight for the development of personalised medicine, tailored to individual genetic profiles.

This will increase treatment efficacy, minimise adverse reactions, improve costs, and will be one of the principal tech developments of this decade.

So, it’s an obvious source of joint working – on data collection, data management, interpretation and the development, procurement and distribution networks of these tailored medicines, with all the staffing, premises, staffing and supply chain issues that will bring.

The NHS point here is that it must be engaged, encouraged and goaded to create a nationwide system of healthcare that does not yet exist, but must. It’s going to happen, but when?

It’s currently in a limited, academic blueprint. Turning that blueprint into reality is a giant health economic and practical exercise for the NHS and pharma to handle together – but think of the opportunity.

And, so, it follows – regulatory bodies in the UK, such as the MHRA, will need to adapt swiftly to evaluate the safety and efficacy of novel treatments that emerge from such cutting-edge technologies.

The recent advancements in mRNA technology, exemplified by the rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines, have highlighted the need for flexible regulatory frameworks.

As industry continues to innovate, agencies will have to develop a system of exceptional agility to facilitate the timely approval of these therapies ,which will flood out of pipelines over the next few years.

Ultimately where there was a global emergency, regulatory found a way of safely but speedily approving something truly groundbreaking.

Imagine this, but across all therapy areas and large molecules with multiple indications – regulatory is going to have to get busy.

Which brings me to…

COVID-19 served as a kind of stress test for the pharmaceutical industry worldwide. In the UK, pharma played a pivotal role in developing and distributing vaccines at an unprecedented pace.

The experience garnered from the crisis underscored – and continues to underscore – the importance of collaborative research, flexible manufacturing processes and efficient distribution networks.

If the industry is going to build on the lessons learned during the pandemic to enhance preparedness for future ones, it will need to do a lot of what it is sometimes reluctant to do – foster national and international collaborations to meet the challenges above.

The pricing of pharmaceutical products will remain contentious – with a constant tug-of-war between ensuring accessibility for patients and maintaining the sustainability of the industry.

The NHS’ budgetary constraints necessitate a delicate balance between negotiating affordable drugs and incentivising (again, post-Brexit) industry to invest.

The NHS’ net zero pledge is woven into all contracts now and companies are winning them with the lowest carbon footprint driving competition.

Aside from incentivising its greening of R&D, manufacturing and packaging, the NHS will be looking to partner industry on the very sustainability of healthcare itself.

Care closer to home has environmental as well as economic benefits, and moving healthcare to more sustainable settings will continue to be an integral part of the pathway transformation agenda.

Digital health is now reshaping patient care and the NHS landscape. Mobile apps, wearable devices and remote monitoring tools are becoming ubiquitous, as are systems’ desire (based on existential need, admittedly) to empower patients to actively participate in their healthcare.

This revolution will also provide the valuable data for the research and the personalised medicine.

Moreover, telemedicine has become a mainstream channel for healthcare delivery, offering increased accessibility and convenience.

Future pharma will have to bond with digital health providers, leveraging technology to enhance patient engagement, medication adherence and overall outcomes.

Are you convinced by my upbeat forecast?

We know the next decade will be pivotal in the history of healthcare and life sciences, but moreover, the NHS.

Surely it will be over the next few years that it finally grapples with the astonishing array of AI, big data, big tech and little tech, and an extraordinary range of technological, genetic and pharmaceutical and nuclear medicine developments, all reinforcing and boosting one another.

On the other hand, in such a world of possibility, the patient will expect ever more; better outcomes, better experience, a better life and more life.

Ultimately, industry will have to work extremely hard with the NHS to make the future it wants a stark reality.

Oli Hudson is Content Director at Wilmington Healthcare.
Go to wilmingtonhealthcare.com