This week we attended the annual eyeforpharma conference in Barcelona. Billed as “the world's largest commercial pharma summit,” hundreds of industry leaders and experts came to share their views and experiences, along with many vendors presenting their products and services. Presentations focused on subjects such as commercial model innovation, patient solutions & innovation, digital innovation & analytics, and advances in customer engagement.
Here are some of the most notable takeaways from the event that will shape the future of the biopharma industry in the upcoming years:
A bold vision for the future of pharma
To kick-off the event, Kris Sterkens of Janssen and Sebastian Guth of Bayer Pharmaceuticals delivered compelling, back-to-back presentations that formed a call to action for the industry to shift from its current focus on supporting the diagnosis and treatment of disease towards a more holistic mission of enabling patients, healthcare providers, and other stakeholders to predict and prevent disease. Guth stated that we are on the verge of a “Gutenberg Moment” in which increased “health literacy,” more available data, and innovations such as wearables and advanced medical software will help “enable patients to better manage health for better outcomes.”
The impact of AI on the pharma industry
There were several presentations that covered Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Intelligence, all helping to form a view of how AI will impact healthcare in the coming years. Christina Busmalis of IBM and Ryan Olohan of Google provided some practical examples, while Ben Greenberg of Medscape argued that AI will be relevant by operating more “in the background” supporting health care providers as opposed to replacing them. Greenberg also highlight the challenges and future potential of voice user interfaces.
Multi-channel & digital marketing are still top-of-mind for pharma
As in previous years, several industry experts presented their companies’ success and learnings in multi-channel marketing, with the term “omni-channel” used much more widely than before. While sharing their organizations’ “best practices,” presenters gave more attention to the importance of collecting and accessing data and the role of predictive and prescriptive data analytics in optimizing customer engagement activities.
Did you attend eyeforpharma Barcelona this year? What were the most interesting presentations and takeaways for you?
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