This week I met with an executive from Biogen. We spent time discussing their business, the usual areas where covered: how they were dealing with the patent cliff, their diversification of offerings, how they were working internationally to name a few. But the one area I found intriguing was how IoT impacts the pharmaceutical space. IoT presents two interesting opportunities for pharmaceuticals.
The first opportunity for pharmaceuticals with IoT is in the supply chain. From manufacturing, to storage and distribution, IoT holds great promise. No surprise as we see a large majority of manufacturers leaning on IoT to provide data that leads to greater efficiencies within their supply chains. For heavily regulated industries such as pharmaceuticals, IoT promises greater visibility and enhanced track and trace, key operating issues facing companies with sensitive inventory.
Unlike a clothing manufacturer where a defect lot can lead to lost sales or a public relations nightmare (think Lululemon’s recall with transparent yoga pants), the fallout from pharmaceutical defects is potentially much more serious. Patients may suffer serious medical consequences, and manufacturers or distributors may face heavy fines and even arrest. Pharmaceutical companies, if they aren’t already, should evaluate IoT solutions that enable secure handling of their products. For example, sensors that monitor how a product is handled through the transportation nodes. These sensors can relay back to the manufacturer if the product was transported at the proper temperature and if the container properly handled. Pharmaceutical companies may also leverage sensors to detect and reduce product tampering. Of course sensors can also be used in the manufacturing process to measure and optimize the factory process.
The second opportunity for pharmaceuticals with IoT is baking IoT capabilities directly into pharma products. This is an area where there is enormous potential for insights, but also presents an ethics and privacy red flag. Companies like Merck are already talking about and exploring the development of “digestables.” That is right, IoT enabled drugs or devices that consumers would eat. The hope is that the data that we can extract from these products revolves around how the drugs interact with our bodies, how are they truly interacting and simply if they are being taken properly (read as doctors tell us to!). From a medical devices perspective we already see companies like Boston Scientific who make pace makers that are IoT enabled. Anyone who is a fan of the HBO show, Homeland, knows the potential risk that poses!
Much of this is only being tested in the labs or thought about in development meetings, but it does bring up the question about privacy. An enormity that might hold back IoT is how is the data going to be handled and protected? There are already rumblings around simple data that our iPhones or Fitbits collect about how many steps we took today, our heart rates or how many calories we burned. What happens when there are devices that are throwing off data about the health of our intestines, how often we go to the bathroom or if we are showing early signs of diabetes? Richie Etwaru has a wonderful model for IoT where as the IoT enabled product gets physically closer to a person’s heart, the greater the possible issues, especially around privacy. Digestables might be just a few inches away from the heart…from the inside.
Pharmaceutical companies should absolutely explore IoT. When it comes to managing their supply chains, they are a prime candidate to take advantage of the visibility and monitoring IoT offers. The more contentious issue is when pharmaceuticals start to productize IoT, how will they handle personal information collected from these IoT medical devices? We may see regulations akin to HIPAA emerge to protect personal information collected via biomedical IoT devices. Pharmaceutical companies should start preparing for these issues today.