Pharmaceutical Industry Shifts to Watch in 2024

The life science sector has seen a major amount of technological adoption in the past few years, prompted largely by the pandemic. As the industry progresses in 2024, it will remain dedicated to using technology to improve clinical trials, expand patient diversity, and strengthen drug safety systems.

Several trends are likely to shape the pharmaceutical and clinical research industries this year:

Real-world data integration will be critical and targeted therapies will be more commonplace.

With accelerated data analysis enabled by generative AI and high-performance cloud computing, clinical researchers will be able to better understand how patients react to treatments in real-life settings, allowing the industry to tailor therapies more effectively to each patient’s circumstances.

Combining real-world data, like electronic health records (EHRs), wearable device data, and patient surveys, with clinical trial data can provide comprehensive insights into how patients react to diseases and treatments in everyday settings. The data will be integral for enhancing trial design, providing drug safety and efficacy, and supporting drug reimbursement proposals.

Ultimately, we will see a significant shift this year and beyond towards incorporating patient experiences into every stage of drug development to inform more personalized treatments.

Cloud, automation, and generative AI will be essential technologies.

Currently, clinical research relies on limited data, often failing to include critical patient care data that sit in silos. Technology and data integration will increasingly bridge this gap, enabling access to more connected, robust data sets. With quicker analysis from AI and more complete datasets, research will become more accessible, affordable, and accurate.

For instance, as new personalized treatments emerge, providers need accurate safety and outcome data. Automation and AI can enable “predictive” signal detection, identifying potential issues proactively. Continued AI investment will streamline pharmacovigilance processes and, paired with real-world data, enhance risk monitoring and adverse event identification.

Generative AI is also poised to transform every stage of drug development in 2024, driving efficiencies in discovery, clinical trials, and safety through its ability to automate, optimize, and provide advanced insights. Large language models (LLMs) will enhance our understanding of biology and molecular screening and accelerate early preclinical drug discovery pipelines to unlock new therapies faster. Generative AI can also optimize clinical trial design, identify diverse patient populations, and integrate complex datasets like genomics, EHRs, and real-world data to improve recruitment and success rates. It may even help make fully digital trial protocols a reality soon.

Decentralized trials and other forms of patient optionality will enable access to a more diverse patient pool.

The pandemic greatly accelerated the adoption of decentralized trials and connected devices have made them a viable data collection option by lowering barriers to entry and improving patient access and convenience. As a result, we expect to see trial designs balance traditional and decentralized methods to meet patient needs going forward.

There will also be a greater focus on expanding patient access to trials through optionality and diversity. Continuing to enable data sharing across diverse health systems will help accelerate research and connect patients with viable trials. Community-based trial sites like local pharmacies and hospitals will provide broader access for diverse socioeconomic and geographic populations.

Technological forces like cloud, automation, and AI will continue to shape the life sciences industry and our approach to clinical trials. Their benefits will be reflected across all facets of clinical research from study procedures to drug safety. Companies that can harness these powers and other emerging technologies will excel through this decade, empowered to bring the safest and most effective treatments to market safely and quickly.