Embracing Digital Transformation in Pharma: Highlights from Datapharm's Year of Innovation and Collaboration

At Datapharm, we’re under no illusion that our Pharma customers are in an incredibly busy profession and that this year has been a time of great change, with a particular nod to the ABPI Code of Practice, electronic Product Information (ePI) and the Windsor Framework.

When I mention embracing 'digital transformation', what I really mean is that the UK Pharma sector is evidently stepping away from paper materials, with the most influential industry organisations driving this shift. That’s not to say that some education or awareness isn’t needed in order to truly think digital. For example, patient leaflets in PDF form should essentially be considered paper on screen, and the more we become aware of things like this, the more we can benefit from that pro-digital mindset.

Looking at the past year as CEO of Datapharm, here are some of my personal highlights.

This year, the Datapharm Customer Meeting was a testament to our unwavering commitment to providing our customers with thought leadership and timely information. We brought together industry experts and professionals in London for an event which was not only valuable in terms of industry updates, but got some lively discussions going, bringing into practice our ethos of collaborating with the industry to improve healthcare outcomes.

It was a pleasure to welcome experts in the field of Code compliance – Dr Amit Aggarwal (Executive Director, ABPI) and Jayne Packham (Code Consultant) as two of our guest speakers at the event, answering a range of questions around using QR codes compliantly.

We also welcomed experts from MILE, Helen Surrey and Michelle Bridenbaker, to delve into how HCPs are searching up SRDs online, and help us learn about bringing success through digital transformation in Medical Information.

We were really touched by the positive feedback we received from customers about the event, and you can also see the highlights reel from the day here.

The Customer Meeting was timely given that the update to the ABPI Code of Practice had, at the time, only been released a few weeks prior. 

The completely rewritten Clause 12 marks a pivotal step towards modernising the Code in line with today's technology. Since the pandemic, QR codes have been given a new lease of life in the UK, and have logically become a popular tool for marketing teams.

The ABPI Code change allows for prescribing information (PI) to be provided via QR codes, removing the burdens that come with printing out this information, while also leading to a better overall user experience. There are some very good reasons to operationalise QR codes for your PI, four of which can be found here.

We’ve held the ambition that we want to improve healthcare outcomes across the world. In a sense, we’ve already been building the foundations by migrating emc’s data to FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources), the global data standard for healthcare information.

But we’ve also looked at ways we can strategically partner with organisations abroad, particularly in Germany and other regions to be announced soon.

Building on the success of the SRD (Scientific Response Document) service launch in the UK with MILE, we’ve recently partnered with Rote Liste, a leading medicines information resource in Germany, to make SRDs accessible 24/7 via search in this country. In many ways, this is the first step to improving the accessibility of this information throughout Europe, and we look forward to revealing more countries that adopt this search service in the near future.

Another big highlight this year has been the launch of emc’s publishing tool. It was effectively a 2-in-1 project, as not only did we completely revamp the interface and the functionality, but we also migrated a whopping dataset into an entirely new data structure based on FHIR.

To put this into context, it involved migrating terabytes’ worth of data, encompassing  a staggering 124,000 documents (including PILs and SmPCs) across 325 companies. The project also involved 8,383 developer hours across three teams, so this was unlike anything we’d done before. I’m immensely proud of the work we’ve done, and I’m excited about what the future holds for publishing regulated medicines information and other non-promotional content which can be accessed across the world.

Because of FHIR, we can then look at how to use ePI (electronic Product Information), across the world – it’s worth mentioning that we’re well tuned into what other medicines information providers, Pharma and healthcare organisations are doing across Europe with ePI through the Gravitate Health project. This year we’ve been collaborating with four Nordic compendia to work on the cross-regional use of product information for select medicines in Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. This includes a subset of ePI for medications used with Diabetes, IBD and COPD.

Looking forward, we will be seeking to deepen our engagement with healthcare professionals (HCPs) as we support them in their work. It may come as no surprise that HCPs are incredibly busy, with little time to waste during their medicines information seeking journeys, and so need the guidance which will help them use their time effectively, while improving their awareness about what’s available to them via online medicines information resources.

Our place as a vital touchpoint between healthcare professionals and Pharma remains, and the things I’ve mentioned above set the tone for a very busy year ahead. We’ll continue to be active at events, such as MAPS EMEA next year, and there will be a lot of news to come out from us in the near future about where we’ll be speaking or attending, and what you can look forward to in terms of new product development.

We are extremely grateful for your trust and support in 2024 and I look forward to seeing many of you in 2025. For now, I wish you the very best for Christmas and the New Year, and hope that you enjoy a deserved break.