Shaping the future of Pharma

Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, robots and empow­ered patients are reshap­ing the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sup­ply chain, says Dr Berta­lan Meskó, Direc­tor of The Med­ical Futur­ist Insti­tute. He will share insights on the trends influ­enc­ing the future of the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try at a free webi­nar for indus­try lead­ers on the 22nd Feb­ru­ary in the build-up to the open­ing of Con­nect in Phar­ma 2023 registration. 

“In my webi­nar for Con­nect in Phar­ma, I plan to give a crys­tal-clear overview about where dig­i­tal health tech­nolo­gies have been head­ing in the 21st cen­tu­ry — with a spe­cial focus on AI — and why these changes are rel­e­vant to phar­ma com­pa­nies,” says Meskó.

“From orga­niz­ing logis­tics and equip­ment to drug design and drug repur­pos­ing, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence has an immense pow­er to auto­mate and ele­vate what phar­ma com­pa­nies have been doing,” says Meskó. “Chat­bots can also rev­o­lu­tion­ize mar­ket­ing by cre­at­ing cus­tomized mes­sages,” he says.

The phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal fac­to­ries of the future will look more like an Ama­zon fac­to­ry: “It will employ many robots while the staff look after them,” he says. “The work­force who ser­vice the robots will be equipped with aug­ment­ed real­i­ty glass­es to short­en the time required to train them for new tasks, which is sim­i­lar to how the auto­mo­bile indus­try has been using that tech­nol­o­gy,” says Meskó. 

The new tech­nol­o­gy is being par­tial­ly dri­ven by the need for greater pre­ci­sion and advances in per­son­alised med­i­cine. “3D print­ing and bio­print­ing meth­ods will be com­mon­place in the pro­duc­tion of a range of prod­ucts,” says Meskó. Pre­ci­sion bio­print­ers use cells and bio­ma­te­ri­als to cre­ate organ-like struc­tures that let liv­ing cells multiply.

Meskó says the com­ing changes will ulti­mate­ly empow­er the patient: “We will see a par­a­digm shift in which patients become mem­bers of their own med­ical team. They want to engage with their health and dis­eases man­age­ment. This means Phar­ma com­pa­nies will have to engage direct­ly with the patient as well as the physi­cian. Patients will require sim­i­lar infor­ma­tion and insights about products.”

In an indus­try that faces heavy reg­u­la­tions and high stakes (patient safe­ty under­stand­ably looms large), most phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies see them­selves as con­ser­v­a­tive and change-averse, says Meskó. But phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal exec­u­tives must embrace the changes that are now rapid­ly com­ing in order to stay competitive. 

Bertalan’s talk will be fol­lowed by the offi­cial open­ing of reg­is­tra­tion for Con­nect in Phar­ma, a Gene­va-based event focused on the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal pack­ag­ing and pro­duc­tion sector. 

As the direc­tor of The Med­ical Futur­ist Insti­tute, Meskó helps com­pa­nies, gov­ern­ments and oth­er insti­tu­tions under­stand advances in dig­i­tal health tech­nolo­gies and bring health­care into the 21st cen­tu­ry. Meskó, who is a physi­cian with a PhD in genomics, has been fea­tured in top pub­li­ca­tions, includ­ing Forbes, BBC and the New York Times and is also a pro­fes­sor at Sem­mel­weis Med­ical School in Budapest, Hun­gary. He is rec­og­nized as one of LinkedIn’s Top Voic­es in Healthcare. 

Renan Joel, Divi­sion­al Man­ag­ing Direc­tor at Easy­fairs — the com­pa­ny organ­is­ing Con­nect in Phar­ma, says indus­try lead­ers are wel­come to sign up to attend the free online webi­nar. “Dr Berta­lan Meskó is a tru­ly mod­ern and inspir­ing voice on health­care tech­nol­o­gy,” says Joel. “His big pic­ture analy­sis of the future of med­i­cine and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal tech­nolo­gies will help indus­try lead­ers get up to speed with the lat­est in dig­i­tal innovations.”