Digital Acceleration: Low-Hanging Fruit And Stretch Goals

21 Oct 2020

• By Ben Comer

COVID-19 has pushed the entire health care system to adopt new technologies and new solutions for conducting clinical research and delivering care to patients. An expert panel hosted by the Galien Foundation provided a meditation on what the biopharma industry has learned so far, and how to use the urgency created by COVID-19 to lock-in technological acceleration while maintaining what FDA’s Amy Abernethy called “responsible progress.”

Planet Earth with detailed relief is covered with a complex luminous network of air routes based on real data. Elements of this image furnished by NASA — • Source: Shutterstock

The idea of catering more directly to patient needs, or of “meeting patients where they are,” has gone from an aspirational goal to a reality during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2019, 11% of US consumers had used telehealth to connect with caregivers. By April 2020, 46% of US consumers reporting using telehealth to replace cancelled health care visits, according to a survey conducted by McKinsey & Company.

Similarly, the COVID-19 pandemic is also hastening a biopharma industry shift toward hybrid and virtual clinical trials, as well as...