As each industry becomes more technologically savvy, the pharmaceutical industry has the chance to emerge into the 21st century and reform how they treat patients while tackling different medical epidemics that affect the world today.
For decades, companies have gathered data and stored them in different silos; however, the industry has become overwhelmed by the amount of data and lack of understanding. This is where the data analytical companies save the day. Because of advancements in data science, companies have the opportunity to gain novel insights that can enhance their treatment and sales plans as well as grow the company in the process.
The data analytics industry has conquered the biggest challenge that faced the technology world: upgrading skill sets from those sufficient to analyze small amounts of clinical trial data to ones that are able to gain insights from real-world data. Through data anonymization, companies are able to guarantee keeping records private while finding a way to see the big picture through analyzing decades of data.
Through studying real-world evidence and generations of data, pharmaceutical companies and the medical community can analyze how they treat patients and form a more accurate plan by looking at the data. Take the opioid crisis for instance. As the body count grows each day, the answer to seeing the full picture lies within the data.
“There are two ways data can help: identify the sub-populations (the specific parts of the country and other demographic information) that are affected so that resources to fight the crisis can be deployed effectively as well as measure the level and the effectiveness of the counter measures taken,” Sayee Natarajan, CTO and co-founder of RxDataScience, said.
“For example, there is data available indicating that the opioid crisis is not evenly distributed and specific parts of the country have different types of challenges.”
The mental health community can also benefit from analyzing data.
“We must mobilize our innovative minds to work alongside data scientists to create solutions to address one of mental health care’s biggest issues — delivering good, evidence-based care to the masses who would benefit most,” Kari Stephens, Ph.D., said in an article for Psychiatric News on May 1, 2017. “Mental health care is best understood not just through individual patient data, but through a comprehensive lens of health care delivery.”
In both instances, by integrating and analyzing the data from multiple sources, the scientists and doctors can identify patterns within the data that otherwise would’ve been harder to detect. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning can then be used to analyze the symptoms, treatment patterns, medical causes, and much more.
Big data has the chance to revolutionize the pharmaceutical industry through integrating all data, collaborating internally and externally, and leverage new discovery technologies. By working with a third party data analytics company, the Pharma industry can have a competitive advantage over their rivals, thus only helping their company even more, and see the bigger picture on how to move forward to help the world have a better tomorrow.
