Cloud collaboration in the pharmaceutical industry

Pharmaceutical companies have been increasingly looking at cloud services in order to help unify such a globally distributed and versatile sector. From research to manufacturing, through sales, distribution and marketing, there are several globally dispersed elements that need unity at any one time. In particular, the main benefits of cloud computing being realised in the pharmaceutical industry are for the commercial sales representatives and medical information side.

For pharma professionals working across multiple markets and time zones, anything that improves the flow of information and promotes collaboration across teams and suppliers is valuable. The introduction of simple cloud-based tools is enabling organisations to streamline processes, having not only markedly improved the ways organisations are run, but are also helping to address compliance issues, such as codes of conduct, set out by the FDA.

The collaboration tools hosted in the cloud allow for better peer-to-peer liaison and removing the barriers (both business and technical) between commercial sales and medical teams, serves to improve business effectiveness and reduce risk.

We’re building social intranets/portals into global pharmaceutical companies which have a compliance dimension built in. For example, within the medical side of pharmaceuticals, the compliance aspects can track those who are qualified to talk about certain drugs – achieved after passing a test. These materials are then subject to an approvals process, delivered to the device of the employee’s choice (laptop, tablet or phone).

All these procedures mean you can easily track the authority and compliance - when employees go out to meet healthcare professionals they are certified to talk about particular drugs. This is just one example of how the social intranet can drive up benefit, quality and reduce risk.

There are more serious considerations to cloud and the pharmaceutical industry too. Running cloud in a highly regulated environment can pose difficulties, particularly in an area that places a high premium on confidentiality.

What we’ve seen as the current main issue is data privacy; people don’t want their private medical or research details, such as “adverse events” (ie reacting to a drug) out in the public domain. Privacy is also a concern, with worries about whether thirds parties can view the information. Finally, it’s an industry with stringent regulations – whether based in Europe or the US.

These are all areas where moving to cloud can help, thanks to the precision of information sharing it allows for. Cloud will certainly help speed things up and promote innovation but we need to have information locked down simultaneously, which reiterates the flexibility of cloud – don’t forget that it can be customised to suit various organisations’ needs and security considerations.

What’s more, pharmaceutical and life sciences professionals can do a lot to educate the financial services sector on data concerns and cloud technologies. For instance, how they can bring sets of data together and realise the immediate use and insights on their own. This will become a big consideration, as financial services are currently reticent to move to the cloud, particularly within EU regulatory frameworks.

Ultimately, the pharmaceutical industry is showing how cloud services can be successfully applied in a highly regulated industry. We’re seeing great results in pharmaceutical innovation and joining up a traditionally dispersed industry, while maintaining data security. We’re excited for the way this is going and also how it will help other industries looking to capitalise in cloud.