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Diseases, whether infectious or non-communicable, negatively affect many people’s lives. From 2020 to 2021 alone, the global health crisis caused nearly 337 million deaths worldwide. Medical researchers thus redoubled their efforts to find cures.
Pharmaceutical firms need a cost-effective solution to speed up their clinical studies and produce potent medicines. Such goals will only be possible with third-party support. How come, though?
Let us discover the role of business process outsourcing (BPO) in boosting pharmaceutical research efforts.
Optimizing BPO Tech for Accelerated Pharmaceutical Studies
Service providers specializing in life sciences use emerging technologies to expedite pharmaceutical research. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the pandemic led to approximately 337 million years of life lost globally. Hence, the pharmaceutical industry has increased its efforts to develop new medicines to avoid or mitigate such impacts.
Outsourcing offers a cost-efficient way to support accelerated medicinal studies. Third-party vendors use these advanced solutions to aid pharmacists in their discoveries:
- Artificial intelligence (AI) technology speeds up and automates tasks in every stage of drug design. BPO providers utilize AI for rapid data mining and management functions.
- Data analytics and machine learning (ML) tools enable faster and more accurate processing of big pharmaceutical data. Such technologies reduce researchers’ time to analyze and identify disease patterns, patient trends, and potential drug candidates.
- High-performance computing solutions facilitate complex simulations and molecular modeling. Third-party and in-house researchers use these platforms to perform computationally intensive tasks required in drug discovery.
- Bioinformatics systems advance genomic analysis, target identification, and biomarker discovery. These tools help pharmaceutical companies quickly determine potential drug targets and personalize medicinal approaches.
- Cloud-based big data management platforms ease pharmaceutical information collection, storage, and access. Authorized researchers can share and use such data in real time over a secure network.
- Remote collaboration platforms let BPO and in-house pharmaceutical teams communicate and work together seamlessly online. These video conferencing and team productivity applications include Asana, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams.
- Robotic process automation (RPA) automates various rule-based laboratory processes. These procedures include liquid handling, sample preparation, and high-throughput screening. This tech reduces manual labor efforts and human errors.
- Electronic lab notebooks (ELNs) record, share, and manage experimental data. ELNs ensure smooth documentation and real-time collaboration.
- Predictive modeling systems optimize experimental designs and research protocols. This tech guides researchers in deciding which experiments to perform. It leads to quicker and more efficient outcomes.
- Cybersecurity tools safeguard sensitive pharmaceutical data from digital threats. These systems automatically scan, identify, and mitigate threats like malware infections, phishing attacks, and breaches.
How BPO Assists in Speeding Up Pharmaceutical Research
Taking advantage of the technologies detailed above allows service vendors to boost pharmaceutical clients’ research and business processes. Implemented by skilled professionals, these modern solutions allow strategic outsourcing providers to execute the following tasks quickly and cost-efficiently.
Facilitating Surveys and Interviews
BPO companies can take over one of the most tedious tasks in medicinal studies: facilitating surveys and interviews. Handling these activities lets client organizations prioritize data interpretation and drug development.
Here is how providers conduct surveys and interviews:
- Help design surveys and interview questions based on specific research objectives.
- Recruit suitable participants for surveys and interviews.
- Use multiple communication channels to distribute surveys and interview invitations.
- Organize survey and interview schedules for the convenience of all parties.
- Ensure compliance with ethical guidelines and data protection regulations.
- Collect and compile survey responses and interview transcripts.
- Review the gathered data to ensure accuracy and quality.
- Conduct data entry, coding, and transcription.
- Assist in analyzing and interpreting the collected data.
- Draft reports and presentations that summarize survey and interview findings.
Providing Clinical Trial Support
What is BPO’s important role in fast-tracking pharmaceutical research? Outsourcing the back-end aspect of clinical trials lets pharmaceutical companies focus on voluntary medicine testers, observe their reactions, and record results.
BPO organizations carry out these time-consuming tasks to ensure seamless clinical testing procedures:
- Preparing and submitting regulatory documents
- Seeking and screening suitable clinical trial sites
- Overseeing patient recruitment and enrollment
- Conducting data collection, validation, and storage
- Performing adverse event reporting and safety monitoring during the trial
- Executing frequent quality assurance and audits
- Enabling remote site monitoring and trial monitoring whenever on-site visits are not possible
- Managing vendor partnerships involved in clinical trials, such as with central laboratories
- Supporting post-trial activities, including archiving data and submitting final reports
Upholding Information Security and Regulatory Compliance
BPO providers help pharmaceutical companies protect confidential data and comply with industry laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). Recent statistics show that healthcare data breaches have an average cost of $10.93 million. Personal information remains the primary target of such attacks.
As a result, service vendors implement robust security and compliance measures to avoid losing millions of dollars. They execute these strategies to secure medical device and pharmaceutical research data.
- Use encryption for safe data transmission and storage.
- Apply strict data access controls.
- Deploy firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and antivirus software.
- Ensure that data collection, processing, and storage follow relevant privacy laws.
- Prepare disaster recovery and business continuity plans.
- Maintain audit trails and logs to track research-related activities.
- Adhere to proper data retention and destruction policies.
- Help obtain information security certifications such as ISO 27001.
Boosting Laboratory Services
Boosting laboratory services is another crucial benefit of BPO in pharmaceutical research. Third-party providers use AI and RPA to automate repetitive lab processes and workflows, such as those listed below. These scalable solutions are especially beneficial during peak research periods.
- Sample preparation, storage, and management
- High-throughput screening
- Genomic sequencing and bioinformatics analysis
- Data entry, annotation, and labeling
- Cell culture and assay development
- Molecular modeling and simulation
- Microbiological testing
Furthermore, BPO organizations invest in modern laboratory equipment that may be cost-prohibitive for pharmaceutical companies, especially the small ones, to acquire and maintain. Providers use this cutting-edge tech to enable more precise experiments.
The Bottom Line
The need to accelerate pharmaceutical research for new drug discovery and development urges companies to outsource. BPO providers optimize various advanced technologies to speed up the tedious aspects of medicinal studies.
In addition to providing skilled researchers, third-party vendors use modernized solutions to help expedite surveys, interviews, and clinical trials. They also employ specialized infrastructure to accomplish lab tasks quickly and accurately. They ensure confidential data security and compliance with relevant policies.
Let’s connect if you want to work with a reliable BPO partner. Unity Communications has well-trained healthcare professionals who can handle your non-core pharmaceutical research tasks. The award-winning provider also utilizes automation to help boost your medicinal studies.
