Never lose a byte in life – part 1
The Internet of Things (IoT) is not a hype. Millions of everyday devices from parking meters, fridges, home thermostats to cars will soon be connected or are already connected to the cloud. In equal speed, the pharmaceutical and medical devices industries step into a radical change. Manufacturing plants across the world increasingly use sensors on the manufacturing floor, connected machines and pumps allow to predict failures and required maintenance and pave the way to network with global logistics and trade routes down to individual patients therapies, medical devices and monitoring systems for human vital functions.
The result: By aggregating and analyzing data from this ‘Internet of Things’ – translating information into knowledge – one can enhance predictability, take proactive measures and ensure the decisive difference in business decisions and drastically improve patient outcomes.
Always be a byte ahead in Innovation
In the life sciences and medical devices industries IoT makes the difference between acting and reacting, to be a step ahead or behind – in terms of new business models, additional opportunities and transformation to a closer patient interaction
IoT will not only lead to new approaches of drug development as well as the design and capabilities of medical devices. The almost direct back coupling between manufacturing and patient experience based on IoT will drive a fundamental change in relationships between scientific research, pharmaceutical industry, medical experts and patients and other stakeholders. Barriers will fall in both directions: Better-informed and discerning patients expect and therefore are open to new service models and communication channels. On the other side pharmaceutical manufacturers undergo a substantial business transformation due to the massive data flood from internal and external systems, need to enhance their responsiveness and take the chance and challenge to develop innovative revenue sources.
One example for a medical IT pioneer is the global IT firm Wipro
They developed a remote monitoring platform that provides real-time mobile access to patient health data – focused on supporting doctors better manage high-risk pregnancies. The solution combines a scalable, cloud-based information system with a lightweight, wearable sensing device that collects and transmits real-time health data back to their doctor, who can access it at any time in the hospital or remotely on a tablet PC. Hospitals can also use the Wipro AssureHealth platform to monitor cardiac and chronic disease patients at home, freeing up limited hospital resources.
Un”byte”able business models for IOT Thus, valuable business models with IoT applications are only limited by our excellence to improve. Let us have a look at some scenarios:
Real-Time Production Monitoring
Visualize and analyze real-time production data to improve quality, minimize downtime and optimize operational scheduling according to market demand.
Improved Clinical Trials
Ensure patient adherence to following clinical trial regiments by tracking when they take their doses and remind them when they forget to take them in time. This will also reduce turn-over rates among participating patients.
Better Tracking and Tracing
Counterfeit products, in particular in emerging markets, greatly impacts life science companies leading to lost revenue. Such counterfeits also carry huge health risk and could negatively impact company brand. Establishing effective track-and-trace techniques using IoT goes a long way to solving these issues.
Expanded Business Models and New Services
Life science companies look for new opportunities coming from non-drug related services based on vast amounts of data collected allowing them to advise patients and alert families or healthcare providers among other things to deliver additional services or gain more insides for better support.
Improved Product Development
Feeding telemetry data collected in near real-time from devices to discover and fix previously unknown issues with the medical devices and ensure timely firmware updates. The collected data could also be used to improve the design of future devices, or offer new services to end users, such as predictive maintenance.
“Byte” your competition
This list could be continued endlessly but shows, that every part of the value chain in life sciences, pharmaceutical and medical devices industry can benefit from IoT. Therefore, it is also unquestioned that smart IoT applications will be the next significant differentiator in this competitive market. I guess we do not have to wait long seeing forward thinking players and pioneers with IoT solutions ready for the market. The necessary IT infrastructure already exists and proves its value in practice. Come back next week to the Process Manufacturing & Resources blog page to read “Never lose a byte in life – part 2“.
