How Covid-19 has changed pharma's approach to technology

How one company found itself in the right place at the right time to help the pharma industry operate throughout Covid-19. 

In March of 2020, businesses all over the world panicked as countries went into lockdown due to the spread of coronavirus. For the life sciences industry, the pressure would have been immense. The global necessity not just for coronavirus test kits and diagnostics, but for the thousands upon thousands of healthcare products that are essential to the wellbeing of patients all across the globe, means that the life sciences industry is not one that can simply stop operating without consequence.

“Every company had to respond quickly when the pandemic originally happened but none more so than the pharmaceutical industry. There was a very sudden increase in demand for services and at the same time – as with everyone else – a decrease in the ability to provide them,” said Devon Copley, CEO of remote communications company Avatour.

When the pandemic hit, Copley found that Avatour was in a position where it could help the pharma industry continue to operate. Avatour provides a platform for remote site meetings, where an operator uses an inexpensive 360° camera to guide participants, wherever they are, through a tour of a location. For pharma, this means that companies can remotely connect with inspectors to complete internal and external audits of their production facilities.

For Copley, Covid-19 represented a shift in the way that pharma companies viewed the adoption of technology. With key quality personnel restricted from travel due to coronavirus, pharma companies quickly realised that they needed another way to conduct audits and assessments that didn’t require an in-person visit.

“There was a panicked search for alternatives and options. For us with the Avatour product, we had very recently launched the product, and quite honestly we were kind of in the right place at the right time.” Copley admits.

Since then, Copley has seen a progression in how Avatour’s customers looked at how they could be using technology. What started out as an initial panicked search for technology that could enable businesses to run under Covid-19 restrictions, quickly turned into companies reassessing how technologies could benefit their organisation in a number of different capacities moving forward.

And the benefits may be more widespread than people think. Avatour’s ability to conduct remote site inspections ultimately means that quality personnel are travelling less. It isn’t just money that  companies are saving from travel, it’s giving employees a better work/life balance. As Copley puts it: “It’s people being able to go home and have dinner with their kids.”

That reduction in travel has other benefits too. With the EU Commission aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 compared to 1990, the onus is on industries such as pharma to become more sustainable and reduce their impact on the environment. Already we are seeing the likes of companies such as Merck, Chiesi, AstraZeneca and others take hard stances on sustainable working.

Copley hopes that companies like Avatour, which offer alternatives to travel through remote video conferencing, can be one part of the industry’s solution towards becoming more environmentally friendly.

Going forward it will be interesting to see if the adoption of technology in pharma continues at an accelerated pace after Covid-19. One thing is for certain though, Covid-19 has forced pharma to rely on tech in ways they never before imagined. What happens next is up to the industry.