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Frost & Sullivan, which analyzes markets to help investors, corporate leaders and governments navigate economic changes and identify disruptive technologies and companies, as well as Mega Trends and new business models, predicts that data monetization, direct-to-consumer and eCommerce business models will create growth opportunities in life sciences.
Global Life Sciences Industry Outlook, 2018, Frost & Sullivan’s recent analysis, finds that healthcare digitization and consumerization, the explosion of patient data and the emergence of value-based reimbursement models are driving the life sciences industry towards the $1.5 trillion milestone. Enabled by digital connectivity, the convergence of biopharmaceuticals, drug delivery devices and companion diagnostics is pushing regulatory and commercial changes in numerous exciting ways. Global Life Sciences Industry Outlook, 2018 is part of Frost & Sullivan’s global Life Sciences Growth Partnership Service program.
According to Unmesh Lal, program manager for transformational health at Frost & Sullivan, “The scope for synergies among disciplines is attracting big tech companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple (GAFA) to the life sciences industry. The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud-based solutions for drug discovery and clinical trial workflow is improving the overall efficiency of production. Additionally, pathology and research laboratories are increasingly adopting health analytics solutions to track the test utilization and efficiently tackle reimbursement issues.”
In 2018, innovations and new business models spun around data monetization because of value-based medicine. In the future, one of the most talked-about subjects will be a connected ecosystem for healthcare. When advanced technology is incorporated, it will propel the delivery of precision healthcare. Many growth opportunities will present themselves in the next few years. They include:
· AI and cloud deployment in pharma research and development (R&D), with drug discovery and clinical development IT solutions spending projected to exceed $10 billion in 2018
· Convergence of molecular diagnostics and big data analytics, with disruptive startups with oncology diagnostics portfolios seeing high rewards from their investments
· Smart genomics, with research labs jump-starting spending on cloud, NGS and big data analytics solutions
· Biopharma partnerships with contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMO) and contract research organizations (CRO), with outsourcing of bio-analytical and current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) services projected to rise to $8.5 billion in 2018
· Liquid biopsy and companion diagnostics, with about $500 million in venture capital funding is flooding the liquid biopsy space as companion diagnostic-based liquid biopsy tests garner approval from the regulatory authority
· Biotech expansion into CAR-T and gene therapies, with favorable tax reforms and competition for new assets leading to higher valuations and product deal amounts
Lal concluded, “While the cell and gene therapy segments have shown potential, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies continue to invest in the promising segments of oncology, cardiovascular, diabetes and immunology. These segments not only have high unmet needs but also have high acceptability across regions Overall personalization, decentralization, collaboration and prevention are amplifying precision health, thereby shaping the future business models and the workforce of life sciences companies.“
