The Blue Ocean strategy is a familiar concept for those who work in marketing. This is a term created to reflect upon new market opportunities within a sector. In pharma, the opportunities are expanding with each passing day. There are a variety of fields that this industry is yet to explore.
Today we’re taking a look at some possibilities that pharmaceutical companies can explore right now.
The Blue Ocean strategy in the pharmaceutical industry
What is the Blue Ocean strategy about?
From a marketing standpoint, a “blue ocean” refers to a new market that doesn’t have a great deal of competition. Perse, new or unknown industries or innovations that pose new marketing opportunities.
The barriers and unexplored opportunities within a blue ocean represent new chances for existing sectors. “Blue oceans” are a contrast to “red oceans”, which refer to crowded markets and tight competition.
One of the main advantages of “red oceans” to “blue oceans” has to do with the business strategies used. Companies that opt for red oceans don’t usually try to create demand. Instead, they focus on attracting existing consumers. Usually through either improved existing product options or lower prices.
Entrepreneurs and innovators adore blue oceans since they have fewer competitors. Tackling and succeeding within a new market can pose a great step toward success for many companies. It is then worth noting that blue oceans are specific to a certain time and place.
What are the opportunities for the pharmaceutical industry?
Pharma has a lot of blue ocean opportunities yet to be explored. Especially when it comes to digital innovations. Within this sector, three areas, in particular, can be tackled to create more blue ocean opportunities. We’re referring to the increasing digitization of pharma processes, increasing personalized medicine, and more accurate data insights.
The three mentioned areas may very well be the landscape disrupters that will cause a stir in the industry. Let’s have a look at some of the possibilities that may come to pharma and healthcare from tackling these possibilities.
Digital therapeutics
The digital field, in general, is making a relevant move in the pharmaceutical industry in more than one field. Digital therapeutics, in that regard, is a good example of the progress that will help in the management of disease symptoms.
Digital therapeutics have the advantage of being focused on the patient, many of them being designed for a specific disease. Not only that, but they can also control a variety of side effects and other factors such as stress. This technology presents itself as an opportunity to improve the lives of many patients and improve a treatment’s efficacy.
Novel sources of patient information
The evolution of pharma and healthcare procedures will be heavily influenced by patient data. The collection of valuable insights will provide knowledge that will impact many decision-making processes.
There’s potential to explore from new sources. We’re referring to elements such as geo-fencing, new sensors, photography, video, and voice. Through these new sources, investigators can learn more and more about treatment effects.
Combining new data sources with evolving technology will improve patients’ lives. There are advancing approaches such as AI and machine learning. These will have an impact on the interpretation of the ever-evolving patient data.
One of the main challenges has to do with the setting of a new precedent for data use. Clinical, research and patient-reported data will be vital to the evolution of many procedures in health.
The result of this evolution will have astonishing effects on health prevention and efficiency. Prevention will be a factor vital for bringing down the cost of healthcare. At the same time, it will save many hospital beds for the more critical cases.
Monitoring patients through digital elements
Patient data comes in hand in more than one sense for pharma and healthcare. The increasing usage of wearables for monitoring many users’ stats is a clear sign that this will have interesting implications for health monitoring.
The incorporation of digital health tech in patients’ daily lives is a considerable step toward obtaining a more accurate look at several health stats. There are benefits associated with this, such as the opportunities for early interventions and digital therapeutics.
This may also have an impact on clinical trials. With continuous monitoring of patients, in the short term, data will be more easily accessible. Not only that but also more accurate measures are applied faster.
Improving precision medicine
Precision medicine will improve as time goes by according to many predictions. In the future, it may be possible to provide the right treatment to patients at the right time.
Patients can also become intervening actors in their treatment processes. Pharma may go beyond the mere concept of precision medicine and introduce the option of personalization for patients. This means that the patients may be able to choose the treatment options they prefer in the future.
Personalized medicine for many healthcare professionals is a hallmark achievement of the past 20 years. Health options are coming close to becoming possible at an individual level. Soon, there is a good chance that we will reach a state of micro-personalized medicine.
Automated drug development
Automation is an element that’s growing across pharma in general. The clinical development process is no exception to this rule. The development of automated processes will help in the development of precision medicine.
Not only that, it will help maximize insights from data streams. This will be very useful when it comes to making matches between patients with specific needs and the best therapies for each case.
Data analysis will be vital for this topic in particular. The more data that comes from the monitoring of patients, the better and more accurate automation, in general, will work for pharma.
Blue oceans in pharma provide a variety of opportunities for the evolution of healthcare. For many procedures, there’s nothing like video content to explain the most important topics. BlueNovius has two great video marketing solutions for pharma brands.