- Hi, I'm Kamna and you're
watching AppianLIVE Expert Cut
when we bring the experts
back into the office
to discuss the events they've been to,
the trends they're seeing
and everything else
executives need to know.
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Today I'm here with Terry
Robinson, our Vice President
of Life Sciences. Hey, Terry.
- Hi Kamna, how are you?
- [Kamna] I'm doing well, how are you?
- Good, thanks for the
invitation to be here today.
- Of course. You were recently in Boston
for the Drug Information
Association Global Conference,
or DIA. How was it?
- It was great. It's where you
bring 6,000 people together
from life sciences from
all over the world.
And they talk about
the latest and greatest
in clinical trials, in managing regulatory
information management in technologies
and how they can drive more efficiency
into both the R&D side of the business
in getting products to
market and also for the full
life cycle management of their products.
- The audience at DIA was
the usual suspects right?
So you've got your chemists,
your professionals in pharma,
but as well there were a
lot of IT professionals,
so what do you think that
says about the industry
right now and where do
you think it's gonna go
in the next couple of years?
- Yeah, great questions.
So, really if you think
about life sciences it's always
been all about innovation.
And with technology, you know especially
information technology, that's really
how they're going to get
a lot of the innovation
done efficiently and so
it's an exciting time
to be with Appian because
Appian actually is driving
efficiency and transforming
how clinical trials get done
but also some of the big
buzzwords were really
all about artificial
intelligence, machine learning,
robotic process automation and blockchain
and those were areas
where I think in probably
50% of the conversations
and sessions that were held,
those were priority, so Appian
really ties into all of those
and we had many people inquiring
about those technologies
on our platform.
- One big buzzword that
was thrown around the DIA
was pharmtech. Can you
explain what pharmtech is?
- Lot of people have
heard the term fintech
for financial technology
and pharmtech is really the same.
What is the life sciences industry doing
to drive technology and innovation?
Through digital transformation
and I think that's where
the pharmtech ties in.
It's really about mobile,
how are they using mobile
and devices, there's a lot of sensors now
that we are all wearing with
Fitbit and other things,
and how can we tie that
data into stream money
and how trials get done more efficiently
and really driving personalized medicine
because different people
respond in different ways.
- So how does Appian help
with implementing these types
of advanced technologies?
- People want end-to-end.
You know when you think
about life sciences,
especially on the RND side,
you have clinical operations,
you have regulatory,
you have pharmacovigilance,
which is essentially global safety,
and when you knit and tie
all of those end-to-end
you can actually streamline
that time it takes
to get clinical trials done
but also in lifecycle
management there are studies
that are conducted post
launch to get new indications
in the uses for medicines.
And again that's another
area where we can tie in
and drive additional efficiency.
- 13 of the top 20 pharma
companies have announced plans
to use AI. How can Appian help with this?
- Again, artificial
intelligence has been around
for many decades, we are just now
starting to really adopt it.
Using Appian in several
areas, machine learning
certainly would be one
and robotic process
automation would be another.
So, again, it's really
being able to take and drive
efficiency with new information and data
to make decisions. It's that
transparency invisibility
that wasn't there before.
- So, Terry, at DIA we had a joint session
with one of our customers IQVIA
on moving beyond the cloud.
What else have we done with this customer?
- Well, IQVIA is one of
the largest CROs, contract
research organizations, in the world
and they are very focused
in driving clinical trials
and managing thousands of them
for pharmaceutical sponsors
which are most of the
large pharma companies
and that device companies.
Appian and IQVIA together
are very powerful
in that our platform
provides a lot of speed
and efficiency and in running
and managing those trials.
- A major theme in pharma right now
is empowering the patient and
focusing on patient value.
How does technology enable that?
- It's a great question. It
is all about the patient.
Many pharma companies have
actually established positions
Chief Patient Officer
and what they are doing
is really thinking about
how patients are empowered
when you think about the
Internet and where you go
to research a certain disease state.
There are companies that
have looked and purchased,
companies that have been
started by parents of patients,
you know, for orphan
diseases, there's a lot
of attention on that.
And so what's happening is
technology is really driving
whether it's through
GoFundMe to raise money
to start, you know, launching attention
to a specific orphan
disease or whether it's
when you think about Airbnb and Uber
and just the ease of use, right?
In getting a car, or staying at a hotel.
It's going to be the same thing
when you look at medicines for patients.
Personalized medicine is another area.
And some of the devices and data
that we talked about earlier
those just the power of
that data coming together
with whether it's a CRO or
whether it's closer ties
to a patient with a giving company
that focuses on a disease
state like maybe MS,
there is a biotech company out there
that treats six out of
every 10 patients with MS
and they want to stay
close to those patients
so they can help them understand
when there are advances
in a given- in managing a certain disease.
So there's a lot of rationale for this,
it's technology where
patients are more aware
but I think it's also about precision
in where you're able to treat patients
based on their DNA and so
getting all of that data
tied together so you can
even do trials, potentially,
in minutes versus years.
- It's fascinating.
- And that's what's possible
with some of the things we talked about.
- It's incredible.
- And it's great to be
a part of it. Appian
really sits and integrates
with a lot of those different technologies
to drive, you know again,
that speed to market
and tightening the window
of getting treatment.
- Well, thank you so much for
being on today's show, Terry.
This was AppianLIVE Expert
Cut. Thanks for watching.
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