Closing the Data Management Gap in Pharma
Product and regulatory information play a key role in the strategic direction of businesses in the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries. However, manufacturing processes and regulatory governance often function in silos, each with their own individual systems for managing data. Efficiency and productivity are connected to data management and how systems work together. Without aligning core business processes to be more collaborative, you’ll fall behind the curve in a market that’s constantly changing.
Your stakeholders, including consumers, want more innovative products at a competitive price. But this is an industry that must adhere to a variety of laws and regulations that governs safety, testing and even marketing. It’s important to adopt a business model that allows your organization to accommodate new requirements and changing scenarios in the pharmaceutical industry.
Here’s what closing the data gap looks like:
- Creating a common vocabulary. Before systems can communicate with each other, they must speak the same language. That means standardizing terminology so systems can share information seamlessly. Regulatory and quality teams use their systems differently than the manufacturing teams, leading to information being tracked differently in the process. Understanding how each group tracks and uses data is important when building bridges between systems. Having a common vocabulary will allow the organization to connect elements in one system to elements in another.
- Automating data gathering and verification. Systems that are not set up to talk to each other create a burden and major risk for your organization. Collecting information manually slows down the process between manufacturing and regulation, ultimately causing a ripple effect down the line. Holdups with compliance leads to a loss of sales because products aren’t able to get to market on time. Identifying segments that are employee choke points and even setting up notifications to prompt workers to keep things moving along will improve the system. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) can even fast-track drug development.
- Increasing collaboration. Business process management breaks down barriers between departments and geographic divisions and improves collaboration. For example, the process to develop medication labeling documents involves approvals from regulators across the globe. If the information printed on the box is not the same as the regulatory documents, then it won’t be allowed across a country’s border. Unifying information systems will eliminate fragmented data chains so all departments and systems can access the same information as it changes.
If you’re looking to grow your revenue and improve process efficiency, then look to the right process and data management systems. On a broader scale, data must become more integrated to drive improvements and satisfy regulatory demands. This will free up budgets so more resources can be devoted to other areas of innovation. Companies who see data as a reliable and trusted asset will have be able to scale-up operations globally.
Learn how Confiance can help your pharmaceutical company with our customizable Business Process Management Capability solutions.
