
The global pharmaceutical industry is known for its ability to reinvent itself. The industry is renowned for its innovations across blockbuster drug discoveries, breakthroughs in biotechnology and ingenious consumer-driven business models. That said, the pharmaceutical industry has not been without its challenges. The industry, which gained remarkably due to globalization, is currently experiencing the downsides of the same. A changing demographic landscape and the demand for cheaper yet personalized medicine are examples of some of the formidable issues that require pharma companies to relook the way they design, engineer and manufacture drugs. In this context, we see that there are going to be 6 mega trends that will influence the pharma production philosophy going forward.
These include:
- Shift from batch to continuous manufacturing
- The role of CMO (contract manufacturing organization)
- Modularization
- Demand for generics and biosimilars
- The rise of precision medicine
- Pharma 4.0 – digital pharma enterprise
I intend to provide a heads-up on the topic of Pharma 4.0 – a trend that will act as the basis for the successful realization of many other mega trends enlisted above.