Blog
Evaluating Today’s Risks and How They Will Evolve Delivers a Competitive Edge
Justin Will, Senior Principal, Commercial Compliance Consulting
Jill Major, Senior Director, Global Business Marketing, Tech Solutions, IQVIA Consumer Health
Jul 16, 2021

It is clear that the life sciences industry is at an inflection point: With technologies integrated and communicating seamlessly, pivoting and staying on top of industry changes is easily achievable. Yesterday’s risks are not today’s risks, and today’s risks are not tomorrows. Well-managed compliance data collection and reporting processes can mitigate compliance risk, but there’s an even more compelling reason to invest in policies and protocols to optimize these business functions: The best compliance management systems can yield enterprise-wide benefits.

  1. Transparency requirements grow more rigorous: In the years ahead, enforcement will become even more of a critical priority, as the Department of Justice and other regulatory agencies increase scrutiny on many long-standing industry practices like promotional speaker programs.
  2. Global harmonization will become an immediate imperative: The multinational efforts of pharmaceutical companies in developing therapies and vaccines for COVID-19 are just the leading edge of the changes manifesting in the industry today, and the writing on the wall is clear—the next phase for compliance is cross-border. Life sciences companies must adopt holistic platforms optimized to operate on a global stage, and the enterprise that fails to prioritize today’s rapid marketplace expansion will be at a competitive disadvantage.
  3. A shift to virtual and hybrid opens up new potential pitfalls in real-time risk mitigation: Companies need to remain vigilant, even as much of the HCP engagement that has taken place over the previous year has moved to the virtual realm as a result of COVID-19. Nearly all aspects of an in-person or remote speaker program are in regulators’ crosshairs, from site selection to meal-planning in accordance with FMV guidelines, to reconciliation and data capture, around payments or other ToV made to participants.
  4. Evolving patient care pathways create new challenges in HCP engagement: The need for connected data is only expected to become more pressing in the future—it reduces risk for manufacturer interactions with HCPs and promotes more favorable patient outcomes. The COVID-19 pandemic has altered traditional sales models, perhaps permanently. By improving the quality of data collection at each initial engagement touchpoint, companies can vastly improve downstream reporting — an outcome that obviously has strong positive ramifications for compliance management, but also holds the promise of a nimbler response when conditions on the ground change rapidly.

While no one can see into the future, the evolution of AI and ML technology is so rapid and its deployment so increasingly widespread that it has served as a catalyst for rethinking long-held operational routines and protocols. Use cases involving predictive technology encompass a proliferating array of business functions and are increasingly relied upon to successfully achieve outcome-based goals.

From the beginning, IQVIA has been leading the evolution of commercial compliance: Its consultative approach and best-in-class technology offered the first solutions predicated on an end-to-end philosophy of HCP engagement data management. Today, it remains at the forefront, as benchmarks for upstream and downstream data accuracy rise. The prospect of using compliance data management to achieve enterprise-wide performance enhancement becomes reality. Through IQVIA Connected Intelligence, companies can now access previously unseen insights from compliance data, informing smarter and more strategic commercial decisions.

To learn more about our solutions, and how connected intelligence can deliver valuable insight from compliance data, download our newest white paper here: https://www.iqvia.com/library/white-papers/turn-insight-into-action-with-connected-intelligence.

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