Published on 01/06/2020

The digital transformation of Novartis has many faces. More than 1000 specialists across all divisions and functions are working to boost the company’s digital savviness and harness the potential of new technologies such as deep learning.

Euphoria is naturally high as the new technologies are opening new avenues for science and medicine. But there is also a very deep-rooted sense that the task ahead is anything but easy and involves the collaboration of many diverse players, inside as well as outside the company.

Uphill struggle

Just take Ronenn Roubenoff, the Global Head of Musculoskeletal Disease Translational Medicine, who is spurring the company’s efforts to create new digital endpoints. “I’m working with a consortium of nine other pharmaceutical companies, three technology companies, and over 20 academic centers to establish digital measurements of mobility,” Roubenoff says.

He knows that he and his colleagues are facing an uphill struggle. But it is worth the effort. “If we can convince health authorities and regulators that digital mobility endpoints predict medical outcomes, we could change not only drug development, but the medical care of elderly, frail, and ill people all over the world,” he explains.

Many of the colleagues who are working in the field are equally inspired to transform, if not disrupt, conventional approaches. “I fully expect how we discover, create, and distribute therapies today will evolve,” says Robin Roberts, who leads the company’s digital research platform Biome, which allows Novartis to collaborate with start-up companies. “I am confident that the vehicle driving us through this change will be based on the technologies we are brave enough to incorporate today.”

Mimi Huizinga, who worked in the digital space before taking a new role in the oncology division, shares Roberts’ view and is working hard to ensure that the company is already making full use of the power of digital today. “When I joined, our data was all over the place and every answer was delayed due to the need to find the data, clean the data and check the quality of the data.”

Now, she says, her former team has more than 20 terabytes of data and can answer questions quickly. “Tying data and digital together creates a virtuous cycle that enables us to have more meaningful strategies for sharing the information that our patients and physicians want,” she says.

But should those outside the small group of digital experts fear what is coming? Not at all, says Gernot Weber, who works on a series of projects in Luca Finelli’s Insights Strategy and Design team. “Having a background as a particle physicist, I’m very excited leveraging internal and external data in a scientific way and giving our associates the right information for objective decisions.”

His colleague Davide Franco shares his view, as data and digital in pharmaceutical research and development will become as natural as bread and butter for breakfast. “It is not anymore about data and technology availability – it is all about the use we make of them.” At Novartis, the use is clear: making highly innovative medicines to help improve and extend people’s lives.