Pharma Industry The pharmaceutical sector has always been among the first industries to embrace new tools and technologies. The highly profitable movers and shakers of the pharmaceutical industry have been particularly keen to leverage new technologies in the digital age we live in today. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cloud computing technologies are all being leveraged by top pharmaceutical companies today to drive growth and maximize profits.
The role of cloud technology has been particularly important for facilitating the storage of massive amounts of pharmaceutical data for big pharma. The challenge of storing, organizing, analyzing, and sharing big data is one of the leading challenges for pharmaceutical companies today. This trend will inevitably continue as personal fitness trackers are used by increasing numbers of patients to gain insights into their health.
In many cases, large pharmaceutical companies have more data than they know what to do with. Moreover, managing large datasets can be costly and time-consuming. Nonetheless, pharmaceutical companies that successfully manage to leverage big data are poised to reap the biggest returns on investment in the industry.
Pharmaceutical companies have had their fair share of challenges adapting to the digitization of the healthcare industry, in which patient and organizational data went from paper record-keeping systems to being stored in computer systems and databases. The first step in this transition was the migration of data from paper records to IT infrastructure.
This represented a big shift in the day-to-day practices of pharmaceutical and healthcare workers but allowed large quantities of medical data to be stored by organizations in a more secure and space-efficient way. The downsides of housing medical data in databases rather than on paper were challenges with accessibility and shareability. Pharmaceutical companies required IT professionals with specialized skillsets to update data and initiate file transfers over a secure network.
Another downside was that pharmaceutical companies had to continually purchase new hardware to update their IT infrastructure and keep data secure while limiting operating expenses. Accordingly, companies had to maintain hard drives, servers, and file transfer systems as well as personnel to handle this equipment to uphold data integrity standards.
To meet these challenges, increasing numbers of pharmaceutical companies are turning to cloud storage technology and third-party cloud service providers. Among the most trusted of these providers include Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and the Microsoft Cloud.
Being that pharma cloud computing is already transforming the way the industry operates and becoming increasingly relevant, let’s explore some of the unique benefits that this technology has to offer.
Affordability and Scalability
One of the primary advantages of pharma cloud storage is that it’s far easier to scale up than storing data offline. Updating IT equipment represents a significant expense and sunk cost for pharmaceutical companies. The same is true for replacing faulty IT equipment and debugging any issues that may occur as a result.
To avoid having to contend with these issues, many pharmaceutical companies outsource data storage tasks to cloud service providers. In doing so, pharmaceutical companies can effectively rent the hardware infrastructure needed to store data. Cloud service providers maintain entire warehouses filled with IT infrastructure that is then rented out to their clients which has become one of the biggest tech trends in the world today.
This means that pharmaceutical companies can efficiently manage large influxes of data by simply renting out more IT infrastructure, rather than buying and setting it up in-house. This also means that pharmaceutical companies can save money by not having to frequently buy new hardware and hire staff to maintain it.
The affordability benefits of cloud storage systems make sense considering that the cost of equipment to store large amounts of data has fallen rapidly. However, the costs of hiring, retaining, and training technical talent to work with customized IT infrastructure have risen drastically. The cost benefits of cloud storage are making it an increasingly appealing option for content management systems as well.
Access and Shareability
Another important benefit of pharma cloud computing and cloud storage is that it facilitates file transfers and enhance firms’ ability to share information. Data can also be more easily accessed since cloud storage providers have standardized protocols and documentation to interact with their platforms,
Storing data in the cloud also means it’s less necessary to continually upload and download data. Instead, the data can be accessed remotely by multiple parties in several different locations. While moving data to cloud storage can be a challenge, it’s often a worthwhile move for pharmaceutical companies due to its shareability and accessibility benefits.
Data is accessible via the internet as opposed to organizations’ internal networks, making it far easier to share. The fact that the data is accessible on multiple devices is also a very important perk for pharmaceutical companies.
The accessibility of medical information is particularly important in the case of companies that use this data to create secure, temperature-sensitive supply chains. Many medical products must be stored at specific temperatures to remain stable.
As a result, pharmacy room temperature ranges must be monitored carefully. This data must be reported, stored, and monitored continuously. The accessibility of this temperature data by using cloud storage systems is vital to this process.
Cybersecurity and Data Integrity Protocols
Many pharmaceutical companies prefer to work with cloud storage providers because they have standardized cybersecurity protocols that are regularly updated after software vulnerabilities are identified.
That’s a huge benefit since it can be very costly for pharmaceutical companies to constantly stay one step ahead of hackers or other malicious actors by releasing regular software updates and adjusting cybersecurity protocols. Moreover, this isn’t necessarily the area of expertise of pharmaceutical companies. Cloud storage providers, on the other hand, are well-versed in consistently introducing tools and procedures to keep data safe.
In many cases. It makes sense for pharmaceutical companies to let cloud storage providers do what they do best to make sure that sensitive medical data is not compromised. Cloud technologies are also capable of introducing multiple layers of encryption and security.
To sum up, it’s clear that pharma cloud computing offers some undeniable benefits for the industry. As a result, these technologies will likely become even more prevalent in the coming years.
