Will digital platforms transform
pharmaceuticals?
By Olivier Leclerc and Jeff Smith
Start-up companies are
combining genetic information and new therapies to transform drug discovery and
development—at greater speed and scale.
Product innovation is at the heart of the
pharmaceutical industry’s value chain. Long, capital-intensive development
cycles and legacy processes, though, have made it difficult to exploit the
full potential of emerging digital technologies to deliver faster, more agile
approaches to discover and develop new drugs. Indeed, McKinsey research shows
that the industry’s digital maturity lags that of most other industries.
A new current is
forming in one area of the industry: start-up companies that are creating
biomolecular platforms around cellular, genetic, and other advanced therapies.1The platforms marshal
vast amounts of data on the genetics of diseases, such as cancer, and combine
that with patients’ genetic profiles and related data. They zero in on key
points along the information chain—for example, where there are linkages between
DNA and proteins, and then cells—to “design” new drugs. Much like software
developers, the platforms engineer disease therapies built upon the “code-like”
DNA and RNA sequences within cells .
These techniques have
significant implications for the treatment of many life-threatening illnesses
that are outside the reach of standard therapeutic approaches. They could also
disrupt the industry’s value chain as they speed up drug discovery and
development, with the potential for a single platform to scale rapidly across a
range of diseases
In one example of a
biomolecular platform, for a disease that results from a mutation in DNA that
codes for a needed enzyme, the platform models the disease from medical and
genetic data to arrive at an enzyme “optimized” to correct for the mutation.
The platform then designs a sequence of genetic material to treat the disease,
as well as a delivery vehicle to get it to the target cells. In another
example, for CAR-T
therapies, the platform modifies a
patient’s T cells (an immune-system cell), which are then deployed to attack a
cancer.
A new competitive landscape
Optimized biomolecular
platforms have the potential to accelerate the early stages of R&D
significantly. For example, it can take as little as weeks or months to go from
concept to drug versus what’s often many months, if not years, of trial and
error under conventional discovery methods. This is achieved by routinizing key
steps (such as preparing a drug for preclinical testing) and using common
underlying elements in the design of the drug (such as drug-delivery vehicles
that are similar). In the past five years or so, a number of start-ups have
formulated dozens of drugs that are in clinical trials and, in some cases,
drugs that have already been approved. The large information base behind
therapies helps identify the right targets for preclinical and clinical trials.
Digital technologies
also enable the fast, replicable, and systematic application of a
platform’s data and analytics capabilities to treat a whole range of related ailments.
Initially, a platform organization may discover drugs limited to one or a small
number of diseases. Then, if successful in early tests, it can expand the
therapies rapidly to a broader range of diseases, building scale economies.
Financial valuations of platform companies often swing dramatically on these
early readouts and reflect the fact that early-stage platform companies
implicitly carry an option to develop a broad pipeline. At the same time, the
platforms encourage collaborative drug discovery—and even new pharmaceutical
ecosystems—since research institutes and other partners can work together on a
therapy concept that can be rapidly translated into a drug.
The road ahead
Biomolecular platforms
face obstacles. They require significant up-front investment to build, and the
variability and complexity of the diseases they target is staggering, even
using high-powered information systems in the discovery process. Yet once
platforms are locked in on a design and validated with a therapy (such as a
vaccine or an intracellular treatment), their speed and ability to scale
rapidly across a range of related diseases make them a potent force. The
advances may catalyze new partnerships and M&A activity as larger companies
seek to establish their own platform expertise and capabilities. Indeed, as the
benefits of digital prove themselves, both biotech pioneers and larger pharma
companies are increasingly positioning themselves to harness the potential of
biomolecular platforms. That’s a recipe for progress and change in an already
innovative industry.
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/shaking-up-the-value-chain?cid=other-eml-alt-mkq-mck-oth-1808&hlkid=59dae826dfaf4b4d980f635dcb7e2f0c&hctky=1627601&hdpid=de80038e-ea08-4016-afab-8b99cef9545c
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