Life Sciences Tech Trends

2023 New Year’s Resolutions for Life Sciences Companies

Make this the year you minimize your supply chain risk, address increased complexity, and form strategic partnerships for efficient digital transformation.

Back in the spring of 2022, Contract Pharma asked pharmaceutical services thought leaders to “offer insight on key trends influencing the market.” We came across this great article at the beginning of 2023, only to realize that many of the warnings put forward by the featured experts remain unheeded.

To help correct the problem, we’ve created three interrelated resolutions for pharmaceutical companies, biotech firms, and medical device manufacturers to commit to in 2023. With a little dedicated effort, keeping these resolutions will help life sciences organizations operate more efficiently and profitably in the short-term, while setting themselves up for long-term growth.

Resolution 1: Minimize Your Supply Chain Risk

Stable, secure supply chains are important for ensuring quality, compliance, and environmental sustainability, and, ultimately, for giving patients safe and affordable access to lifesaving and life-enhancing treatments.

Drug and device manufacturers are under increasing pressure to understand exactly where raw materials come from and what happens to them throughout the manufacturing process. Can suppliers be trusted? Is data readily available for audits? Can oversight be automated? These are the questions that business leaders at life sciences companies need answers to if they want to stay competitive.

As James Park, EVP and Chief Business Officer at Samsung Biologics, mentioned in the Contract Pharma article, the “production of biologics is fraught with challenges and potentially time-consuming processes that can be at odds with accelerating market timelines. Technology transfer complexities, lengthy timelines to Investigational New Drug (IND) and Biologics License Applications (BLA), and dated data management systems are prevalent challenges…Processes, capabilities and facilities must be adapted and optimized to meet the demand for speed that is likely to continue in the future.”

Fortunately, digital transformation efforts—starting with a modern ERP system that’s purpose-built for the unique concerns of life sciences organizations like STAEDEAN – can improve supply chain management and accelerate therapies towards viable commercialization. Some of the primary benefits include:

• End-to-end, real-time product traceability that reduces waste, enables granular product unit tracking, and increases trust among stakeholders

• Advanced analytics for better, data-driven decision-making

• Automated processes for greater accuracy

• Immutable record-keeping that reduces the burden of audits and inspections

Resolution 2: Address Increased Complexity

A modernized supply chain is mandatory for all life sciences companies, especially those developing advanced therapeutical medicinal products (ATMPS). According to Global Data, more than 3,000 ATMPS therapies are in development today.

These types of innovator products for rare diseases and other niche indications are increasing clinical research complexity, regulatory complexity, supply chain complexity, and commercial complexity. For example, drugs that need to be held at low temperatures require a whole new paradigm for labelling, packaging, and distribution.

Once again, digital tools can save the day. With a powerful ERP system in place, life sciences organizations can overcome complexity by creating a single source of truth that pulls in real-time data from disparate sources to enable valuable automation and analytics capabilities.

Resolution 3: Pick the Right Partners

With greater risk and increased complexity comes the need for trusted partners who can help life sciences organizations solve their unique problems.

In the Contract Pharma article, Joe Haugh, Vice President at Cognizant Life Sciences Manufacturing, says that “Pharma’s core competency is discovering innovative treatments, so an increased reliance on partners … could free up the industry to do what it does best. … Collaborations are becoming increasingly necessary to support pharma in its effort to transform operations and be more efficient at delivering the billions of doses patients around the world are taking today.”

We couldn’t agree more, and we’re proud to offer pharmaceutical companies, biotech firms, and medical device manufacturers the only ERP solution, native to Microsoft Dynamics 365, with life sciences-specific capabilities to ensure regulatory compliance and automate business processes.

If your organization is dealing with a patchwork of legacy systems, spreadsheets, and data silos, it’s time to commit to the three New Year’s resolutions highlighted here. And best of all, the experts at STAEDEAN can make sure you keep them.

Do you want to minimize supply chain complexity and risk? Are you looking for trusted partners to help you make your supply chain resilient?