Is your Strategy attuned to the Transformative Changes in the Oncology Ecosystem?

The global burden of cancer has been growing relentlessly. As per the GLOBOCAN 2018 estimates of cancer incidence and mortality, there have been an estimated 18.1 million new cases of cancer and 9.6 million cancer deaths. It’s no wonder that we see a concerted worldwide fight against the disease through prevention, early detection and treatment and other interventions. There’s also a simultaneous push for developing innovative new drug candidates. An estimated seven hundred drugs are going through different stages of development/clinical trials/regulatory approvals and commercialization aimed at fighting specific cancers. Given the low margins for ultimate success after huge investments in time and money, the task of developing a cancer drug candidate and taking it through clinical trials to ultimate approvals is never easy. Moreover, the growing complexity in oncology drug development requires businesses today to adopt innovative decision-making processes. There’s also a pressing need to build new business and operating models through creating suitable partnerships and portfolios. Dynamic Changes in the Ecosystem: The cancer-focused ecosystem is defined by dynamic changes. Let’s look at some of them:

• A number of drug candidates are in the pipeline, passing through varying stages of development and approvals before being commercialized. There are no guarantees on who will find a breakthrough cure, or who would be able to hit the market first and more importantly, win it. This makes the future very uncertain for every one of the drug sponsors.
• Conventional chemotherapy medicines are not the go-to treatment options anymore as the preference has passed to immuno-oncology and targeted therapies.
• Treatments involve a combination of two or more drugs as multiple therapeutic combinations are being tried and tested using clinical trials, requiring huge investments of time and money.
• Drug development is becoming highly patient-centric as well as cancer-centric as drugs are being linked to the gene mutation presented by the patients and their effectiveness against a specific type of cancer.
• The increasing focus on fighting cancer has motivated a number of stakeholders to get involved in the action, exponentially increasing the competitiveness in the cancer-focused ecosystem.

These developments and more are making businesses feel the uncertainty and affecting their decision-making processes and making them consider revamped business models. Need of the Hour: Oncology-focused entities today recognize the need for a collaborative environment which can support the needs of all players, as they formulate the strategies needed to plan for developing and growing their businesses. Such collaboration would help everyone to pool disparate resources and strive to succeed together, whereas working in individual silos could make them invest huge amounts of time and money into a drug molecule which could ultimately end up as a non-starter. Given the time and cost resources needed by a drug candidate, it’s an undisputable fact that such unmitigated disasters could be avoided through mutual coordination and collaboration from early stages among the players.

• Creative partnerships and networking between the stakeholders is an essential component of the business strategy of cancer-focused organizations today as they make decisions in real-time and based on business intelligence.
• This approach has strategically transformed the organizational dynamics of the various stakeholders in the ecosystem, transforming their portfolios and forging partnership networks.
• Patient-centric strategies which go beyond the best molecule, to include targeted or combination therapies and innovative approaches are driving the search for the right molecule and bringing the patients themselves into this collaborative network

Transform or go obsolete seems to be the mantra of the moment for cancer-focused organizations of all shapes and sizes, as well CROs and even diagnostic centers which work within the ecosystem. Since change is the only constant for the industry, it’s important to stay informed and be willing to change course when needed. The award-winning platform Lumiseek fosters a collaborative environment by offering a core framework to streamline your efforts to find collaborators with complementary expertise, establish and manage global collaborative projects, and to manage your professional network by strategic grouping and segregating shared communication. Qualified cancer-focused organizations of all types register with Lumiseek which offers mechanisms to securely and privately communicate with them to develop a synergy with their near-term goals. The project management module lays out project roles, deliverables, tracking (budget and timelines), activities, and integrates other external or legacy systems used by the users or their parent organizations. The personal network management system, on one hand, allows users to create groups within their professional network (e.g. potential collaborators met at Onco-conferences, Key opinion leaders, reviewers etc.). Users can also create temporary communication groups which may last only for the life cycle of a particular project. Developed by professionals with extensive experience across most functions of the cancer care value chain, Lumiseek answers all the requirements of the various stakeholders in the field of oncology. Do try it here and share your reviews/feedback with us.