How 'New Science' can enhance patient treatment

If there’s a silver lining to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s how the world came together to find a solution as one.

Throughout the pandemic, technology has enabled global collaboration, as more people shifted to working from home, while science allowed multiple COVID-19 vaccines to be developed and rolled out in record time, despite working remotely.

The convergence of governments and industries, particularly biopharmaceuticals, to innovate and create a solution to the crisis was inspiring, but it raises questions around what’s needed to see this pace of innovation again. Do we need a global crisis to innovate? Or can biopharma companies forge their own pathways to innovate, while making solutions more affordable and accessible to those who are most affected: patients?

New Science is the answer: the intersection between novel life science mechanisms that address significant unmet patient needs using a combination of advanced science and technology. New Science also fuels unprecedented growth in the biopharma industry and is projected to drive 81% of revenue growth and 61% of all revenues over the next five years globally.¹

As more precise and effective treatments are developed from New Science, the price tag for research and development rises. This places more pressure on biopharma companies to be profitable, while remaining affordable and operating sustainably.

Economies of scale do not translate when developing treatments. In years gone by, biopharma companies have passed on research and development (R&D) costs to consumers, but the pandemic has woken up some biopharma companies to the fact that this is not a sustainable business model. It’s the reason why governments across the world spend so much on health care. The Australian Government spent $80.2 billion on health care alone in 2018–19, and that number is expected to explode in 2020–21 in response to the pandemic.

The issue is compounded in the United States, which generates half of all biopharmaceutical revenues globally. The US spent close to US$4 trillion on health care in 2019², yet has a far less mature social healthcare system than Australia, leading to heightened scrutiny of biopharma companies, as lawmakers look to pass stricter regulations around pricing.

That, however, does not mean that biopharma companies in Australia and abroad cannot leverage New Science to develop treatments and maximise return on investment for their patients and shareholders. Accenture has identified three levers that Australian biopharma companies can pull to help bridge the gap between treating customers and reaching profitability using New Science.

The first lever is using data to inform decision-making. One example is data-led drug discovery, which can better identify, validate and optimise low-risk targets during development. For example, Exscientia is an AI drug discovery company that uses predictive models to compare a target protein against a database of interactions to generate a list of compounds that are favourable drug candidates. This method has helped Exscientia cut discovery costs by 80% and reduce the discovery time from four and a half years down to a year.³ As products become more complex, more analytics and data management capabilities are required. Data lakes are being digested by AI and machine learning algorithms to help drive and speed up new discoveries and development, as well as provide smarter care.

The next lever is realising the efficiencies of New Science, like better chances of success and smaller patient cohorts. By shifting their portfolios to be weighted more towards New Science, biopharma companies can save on overall treatment costs. Our research found that the cost savings for each New Science treatment and the costs saved from smaller population trials amounted to US$134 million per treatment.⁴

The third lever is conducting clinical trials in a virtual, hybrid or decentralised setting, which has been a critical acceleration resulting from the pandemic. Biopharma companies leverage in silico and digital twin capabilities to allow for near-to-patient trials. We’ve found that by using virtual components during trials, patient enrolment, retention and time to completion all increased, saving an estimated US$146 million per treatment.⁵

Ultimately, biopharma companies must acknowledge the changing economic landscape and the impact this will have on evolving customer relationships. Companies that redefine this relationship will not only be able to deliver better outcomes to patients, but will drastically cut down on their costs, placing themselves in a better position to reach profitability. The time is now for biopharma companies to step up and identify new pathways and opportunities in the rapidly evolving landscape.

References

1. Accenture, April 3 2019, New science: Biopharma’s new growth engine, https://www. accenture.com/us-en/insights/life-sciences/new-science
2. CMS.gov, December 2020, NHE Fact Sheet. https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/NHE-Fact-Sheet
3. Freedman, D. H. (2019). Hunting for New Drugs with AI. Nature, 576(7787), S49–S53. https://doi. org/10.1038/d41586-019-03846-0
4. Accenture, April 3 2019, New science: Biopharma’s new growth engine, https://www. accenture.com/us-en/insights/life-sciences/new-science
5. Accenture, April 3 2019, New science: Biopharma’s new growth engine, https://www. accenture.com/us-en/insights/life-sciences/new-science

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