Insights

Multiple interrelated information challenges now face the pharmaceutical and life sciences ecosystem. Agonist Health’s mission is to drive solutions to these challenges.

Looming Cost of Hand Made Drugs

Highly targeted drugs drive future growth, and their cost, utilization and complexity require new approaches

  • Over 50% of 2022 pharmaceutical approvals were in rare diseases or orphan conditions¹

  • More than half of pharmacy spend is now on specialty drugs, growing ~10% YoY²

  • Emerging gene therapeutics can cost over $1M annually³

Sources

¹ https://www.fda.gov/news-events/fda-voices/fda-approves-many-new-drugs-2023-will-benefit-patients-and-consumers#:~:text=New%20Drugs%20for%20Rare%20Diseases,received%20an%20orphan%2Ddrug%20designation.

² https://www.drugchannels.net/2021/12/pbms-and-drug-spending-in-2020-data.html

³ https://www.mercer.us/our-thinking/healthcare/gene-and-cell-therapy-the-rise-of-million-dollar-drug-treatments.html

New Data Overload

Health data growth is unprecedented, and it outpaces efforts to organize it.

  • A typical phase II protocol collected 88% more data in 2015 than 2005⁴

  • Hospitals produce 50 PETABYTES (million gigabytes) of data annually but only use 3% effectively⁵

  • Genomic research will produce 2-40 EXABYTES (billion gigabytes) of data in the next decade⁶

Sources

https://phrma.org/-/media/Project/PhRMA/PhRMA-Org/PhRMA-Org/PDF/A-C/ChartPack_Biopharmaceuticals_in_Perspective_Fall2020.pdf

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/12/four-ways-data-is-improving-healthcare/

https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/Genomic-Data-Science

Interoperability Meets Silos

Interoperability initiatives abound, but complex legacy systems AND organizations remain bottlenecks

  • 94% of pharma knows RWE is important

  • BUT LESS THAN HALF have mature RWE capabilities in place⁷

  • Meanwhile, only 20% of health systems trust their data

  • AND 51% blame interoperability challenges⁸

Sources

https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/health-care/real-world-evidence-study.html

https://www.intersystems.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Healthcare-Analytics-Decisions-Sage-Growth-Partners-MarketReport.pdf