Pharma and Medicine in 2022: 7 trends to check out

The Pharma industry impacts healthcare sustainability: free and fair pricing, cost accounting, drug reliability, and patient safety all depend on Pharma. Environmental factors affecting humanity such as water, heating, and electricity use can be controlled by Pharma as well. Considering these aspects can not only help the environment but even bring the Pharma company closer to the status of a sustainable healthcare provider. A comprehensive approach to disease management can enhance company resilience.  

From a business side, marketing, data transparency, protecting intellectual property, and opening new markets are essential for Pharma too. The crisis of 2021 showed that Pharma now needs a perfect balance to thrive: science and money, on the one hand, patients’ health and authorities on the other. Let’s look at the 7 Pharma trends for 2022. 

New horizons for mRNA medicines after COVID-19 treatment success

The mRNA-based anti-COVID drugs were created to save lives. But the mRNA story began long before: the first experimental vaccines were created back at the end of the 20th century. Now, such vaccines have become a promising direction for public health. They are aimed to cure influenza or cytomegalovirus, and even treat and prevent global diseases from HIV, cancer, tuberculosis, cystic fibrosis, and heart disease to asthma and other respiratory diseases. 

Most vaccines are supposed to kill or weaken the pathogen. The mRNA vaccine contains harmless genetic fragments of this pathogen that can teach the immunity to deal with it. This means the vaccine can easily adapt to mutations. This is how it worked with SARS-CoV-2 proteins. 

May 2020, the McKinsey Global Institute stated that today’s science can tackle at least 45% of the global burden of disease. For example, genome editing could help fight malaria causing about 400,000 deaths a year worldwide. The mRNA success can start a “bio revolution” that will affect healthcare all around the world. 

The problem of mRNA in cell delivery was not completely solved by now: these mRNA molecules are quite fragile, and therefore require specific storage and transportation conditions. However, the success of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines has changed the game of disease control on a global scale. 

Monoclonal antibodies efficiency growth

In 2021, the global market for drugs based on monoclonal antibodies made up to $39.1 billion. And it is expected to grow to $50.6 billion in 2026. 

The global vaccine alliance (GAVI) claims that the “monoclonal” medications are mostly targeted at the high living standard countries — almost 80% of all the monoclonal antibodies are present in the USA, Europe, and Canada markets. Even if such drugs are registered in countries with lower living standards, they are hardly available to ordinary people visiting public hospitals. Though, using such medications provides great opportunities for the healthcare system. Solving this challenge and making these drugs closer to people, it is important to make the manufacturing process more efficient, speed up the registration and licensing process, and ensure differentiated pricing. 

The monoclonal-based medicare has a range of benefits. They are more natural and safer compared to synthetic drugs, and they are easier to manufacture. They can be prescribed to all-age patients, and they can be used by patients with low immunity levels.  

Healthcare technology assessment goes global

The main goal of the healthcare technology assessment (HTA) program is to ensure accessible and affordable medicare at the healthcare organizations all around the world. Since EU rules and regulations in terms of medicare were all done and confirmed, the process of medication delivery became easier. The united HTA network (EUnetHTA) aims to unify drug assessment, control, and distribution all across the EU countries. 

The main challenge here is the absence of a unified conception of the particular drug value. It means, that everything beyond the medicine itself (e.g., child care, pain level, inability to help relatives resulting because of medicare absence) was not included in the product value and price. The new assessment system is meant to resolve this issue. The innovation rate, budget impact, and other factors will be counted too. 

The collective EU evaluation of the program is quite high: the new technologies, scientific research, and consultations are expected to start their way at the end of 2024. This expectation date helps Pharma companies to meet the deadlines and ensure all corrections are done timely. 

Specialty drugs and rare diseases treatment

Following the CVS Caremark statements, specialty drugs have made up to 52% of all Pharma businesses expenses. Being not so much, they are quite expensive and are of high importance to the healthcare system.  

As technology evolves, Pharma manufacturing invests more and more into very promising new generation drugs. The list of rare diseases drugs becomes longer: now, the specialty drugs are not only aimed at oncology, there is medicare for Alzheimer’s Parkinson’s, HIV, cerebrospinal sclerosis, and heart-related diseases. All those patients are waiting for their treatment, so this medicine is essential to purchasing.  

Today, the manufacturing prices grow, and it includes not only rare medication manufacturing processes, but also special agents used in this process, the technologies and tools, and the experts ready to work in the industry. It means that specialty drug manufacturing may change soon. Now companies have to consider their budget, human and time resources and regard the pandemic evolution. 

Saving the planet: reducing the carbon footprint

The new vaccines were developed fast. And they work and save lives. But what about ecology? Looks like we cannot stop this essential life-saving process, but the environmental harm will grow. Can we reduce environmental harm from this fast vaccine-producing, logistics, and post-use garbage? And how does it affect human health? 

Our health depends on climate change a lot. According to Sanofi, some transmissive diseases related to mosquitoes, fleas, and ticks, such as malaria, dengue, Lyme disease, and others, depend on the temperature and humidity change a lot. Air pollution, in its turn, is the main factor in respiratory and other illnesses. 

Bristol Myers Squibb, in their turn, claims that climate change can be dangerous for the Pharma industry’s success, as Pharma companies can produce the needed amount of medicine only with enough energy and clean water. 

At the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), national industry associations have discussed Pharma initiatives to reduce carbon footprint, invest in renewable electricity and energy efficiency measures, and recycle and reduce water consumption. Up to 80% of the largest Pharma representatives have set targets for zero emissions and carbon neutrality. Other companies plan to achieve these and other targets as soon as possible. 

These initiatives make a great change to environmental safety, but there is still a long way to go. And 2022 offers great opportunities for sustainability. 

Flexibility is the new strength

COVID-19 has limited face-to-face communication, though the digital technologies opportunities grew a lot. Moreover, restricted access to clinical testing locations pushed an acceleration of tools, technologies, and strategies development, so companies could perform remote or hybrid clinical trials. Such innovations lead to new possibilities for medical innovations. 

Digital technologies and media made patients and other stakeholders better informed and empowered them to choose what to trust, and what to buy. Now, they want better content and demand closer interaction, at the most convenient time, and through the channels they want. 

These changes demand more flexibility in working with the audience while allowing them to identify and segment potential clients earlier and more accurately. The innovations enable companies to shape the trials in accordance with the client’s preferences or abilities. 

Agile supervisory control methodology also raises questions about social changes and industry responsibility. Even minor failures can affect the market badly. It means the Pharma industry must learn how to adapt to changing conditions, and how to thrive in the modern world, or at least be able to survive. 

Making the next step: omnichannel marketing approach

According to the Accenture Health Experience Survey, 32% of patients used the Internet to find online medical consultants in 2021. It is 25% bigger than at the beginning of 2020. Besides patients’ digging into digital medicine, the demand for FMCG goods and essential medicines has increased. In addition, clients now have access to a wide range of independent sources of drug and health information. 

On the one hand, these changes help enhance profiling and create better client targeting, on the other hand, they lead to huge changes in the client marketing of Pharma giants. 

Digital technologies and mass media have empowered Pharma to reach more targets. Though, a multichannel approach offers the separation of channels leading to the waste of marketing investments (duplicate or inconsistent data). The old approach doesn’t work either as it limits the evaluation of performance indicators up to only the feedback received. The strategy itself might be ruined. 

Omnichannel marketing is all about creating a united and unified customer experience across all channels. With a detailed multi-channel strategy, the perfect Customer Journey Maps can be created. This means marketing will work full force. 

Omnichannel marketing adoption might be challenging. The transition does require significant planning and adjustment, systematizing all internal sources and platforms to control the impact of marketing activities. And there might be security and confidentiality risks along with the lack of available client data. 

However, this approach enables businesses to get comprehensive information about the client experience, and teach how to interact with the audience. This is why pharmaceutical companies have to try new digital opportunities anyways. 

2022: the year of changes

The pandemic has severely affected health technology assessments, pricing, and reimbursement procedures, so the drug access to the market becomes increasingly harder. However, in 2022, Pharma companies will have even more opportunities to develop the market: with new technologies and new marketing approaches. 

Having the right strategies and technologies, we will keep fighting the coronavirus, create a better, more positive environment for innovation, and promote health all around the world. MD Cloud team is ready to help out here. Our experts know the latest trends in Pharma industry, and constantly work on selecting the best tools for business enhancements. Reach our team for the deep analysis of your business, thorough free consultation and the selection of the perfect solution for your company.