What to expect from life sciences in 2021

European Pharmaceutical Manufacturer speaks to those working across the life sciences industry to find out what to expect for 2021 following a very different and strained 2020.

With Covid-19 taking its toll on everyone, Lloyd Salmons, co-founder of wellbeing technology company Peptalk, expects 2021 to be a year of recovery. 

“The last nine months it has felt more like we are 'living from work' rather than 'working from home'. In 2021, restoring mind, body and soul are going to be high on the agenda so that people can be refreshed and recharged and, in a position, to perform at their very best. This will mean finding time to prioritise mental health, sleep and recovery.” - Lloyd Salmons, Peptalk.

Contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) Recipharm believes that many manufacturers will be looking to take what they’ve learned from 2020 into the new year.  

“The biggest challenge of 2020 for CDMOs has been the need to speedily adapt operations, from diversifying their active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) supply, to taking steps to support social distancing within their workspace. It is likely that this that will continue into 2021. The API shortage highlighted the fragility of the pharma supply chain and the need for companies to ensure they have access to multiple suppliers to ensure greater resilience in future.” – Recipharm

Andrew Bulpin, head of Process Solutions, Life Science, at Merck, explains how messenger RNA therapies have been brought to the public’s attention thanks to the Covid-19 vaccine development work by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech.

“Pre-pandemic, a lot of analysts wrote off messenger RNA vaccines and therapies because only a small number have made it to human trials. However, as we’ve seen with the initial successes from the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, mRNA-based technology is now in the spotlight. The pandemic has shown the potential of utilising mRNA-based therapies due to their safety, efficiency and scalability. I predict we’ll see an increasing number of mRNA-based therapies moving forward to address a variety of applications and indications including cancer therapy and enzyme replacement therapy.” - Andrew Bulpin, Merck

The development of Covid-19 vaccines has also brought to attention the technology needed to store and transport these complex medicines.

Dusty Tenney CEO, of refrigeration specialist Stirling Ultracold, says that the ultra-low temperature infrastructure needed to store Covid-19 vaccine will now become the foundation for bringing precision medicine into the mainstream.

“The mRNA based Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for Covid-19 have become a springboard for bringing precision medicine into the public consciousness and are certain to fuel interest in more treatments like them post-pandemic given their demonstrated efficacy in all types of patient populations. However, as with the vaccines, these treatments can come with a critical caveat: demanding temperature requirements due to higher than average chemical fragility. The infrastructure built now to protect the Covid-19 vaccine supply chain will have long term benefit when it comes to the accessibility of precision medicine as more of these treatments are brought to market. As an added benefit, the range of temperature capability enabled by ULT infrastructure will shorten, if not eliminate, the need for stability testing of many kinds of drugs, which typically takes months. Dry ice will continue to play a role in larger scale distribution where providers trained and equipped to handle this volatile substance carry product for a short time before handing off to the next. However, for last mile delivery and long term storage in health facilities and pharmacies, ULT freezers will have greater long term value and better manageability while skirting the liability and safety issues associated with dry ice.” - Dusty Tenney, Stirling Ultracold

Whilst the life sciences industry is increasingly becoming more digitalised, pharmaceutical company Novartis thinks that the outbreak of Covid-19 will lead to more of the industry becoming “tech-led”.

“The healthcare industry is at an inflection point. The outbreak of Covid-19 sparked a mass movement to digital systems almost overnight, and in 2021 we’re going to see this trend solidify with tech-led healthcare becoming core to how we operate as an industry. From drug discovery and development through to manufacturing and patient treatment, technology will create new opportunities at every stage of the healthcare process.

“But realising the potential of this digital moment can’t just be done by individuals, it will need true cross-industry collaboration if it's going to succeed. This means up-skilling current employees and bringing in new tech talent. And the tech sector is ready for the challenge – our research found that 86% of tech professionals think that the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries’ digital moment has arrived, and more than four fifths are open to moving into the sector.

“When it takes 12.5 years and $2.5 billion to bring a drug to market, the healthcare industry and the patients we serve can’t afford to miss this opportunity.” -  Novartis

Charles Evan, vice president of pharmaceutical development at global CDMO Medpharm, says that the pharmaceutical contract services market continued to grow during 2020, despite the effects of Covid-19.

“Despite the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, 2020 demonstrated accelerating growth of the pharmaceutical contract services market.  In addition to the large outsourcing contracts for vaccine production to address Covid-19, investment continued across the pharmaceutical industry, driving the need for contract development services. In Q3 2020, twenty-five investment deals were executed focused in the drug development market sector guiding the need for innovative solutions from the product development service sector.” - Charles Evans, Medpharm

Lastly, Karina Malhotra, founder of healthcare management company Acumentice believes that collaborative working will become prominent throughout 2021.

"Next year will see collaborative working become more prominent, particularly across systems that are innovative when it comes to sharing resources and capacity (workforce and estate). This will mean greater adoption of cloud-based technologies to enable this to happen. We will also see more discussion - at both a regional and national level - as to what procedures the NHS will fund and carry out as it looks to address the waiting list that has built up over the course of the year. As a result, the government and both NHS England & Improvement will address the issue of access targets to make them relevant to a post-Covid environment, this would need to include legislation for standards and current metrics to change. Finally, we’ll see NHS providers encouraged to invest more in technology that supports remote care and that which helps them automate and speed up their processes." - Karina Malhotra, founder, Acumentice