IoT tech in pharma sector to be worth £1.7bn by 2020

Internet of Things (IoT) is transforming the pharmaceutical industry at a rapid pace, and it has the potential to enhance almost all the processes of the pharmaceutical industry.

This transformation affects clinical trials, drug disclosure, manufacturing, and supply chain to remote patient monitoring, according to GlobalData.

IoT software and services in pharmaceutical industry is expected to grow from $420m (£300m) in 2015 to $2,486m (£1,77m) by 2020, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 42.7% from 2016 to 2020.

Alok Singh, senior technology analyst at GlobalData, said: “IoT software and services effortlessly connect and create the base upon which IoT applications and use cases can be realised to develop a comprehensive solution that will benefit organisations to reduce response times, enhance product quality, security, and boost performance.

“IoT software and services spending is driven by the large adoption of cloud platform-as-a-service (PaaS) along with advanced data analytics, new application, and use cases, which transforms data into substantial information and eventually into the activity that will boost business productivity, or better customer service.”

GlobalData’s pharmaceutical IoT software and services revenue forecast depicts significant growth in the Asia Pacific region, to reach a value of $655m (£468m) by 2020, growing almost five-fold against the 2015 baseline.

The Asia-Pacific region’s robust IoT software and services growth in the pharmaceutical sector is primarily driven by the large number of upcoming pharmaceutical manufacturing organisations, increasing expenditure, high internet penetration rates, government investment policies, demand for quality treatment, and rising adoption of new technologies like cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence (AI).

The study also states that Middle East & Africa will deliver the fastest overall growth in IoT spending with a five-year CAGR of 49.9%, but from a far smaller base.

Meanwhile, North America and Europe are the largest regions in terms of investment at the beginning of the forecast period and combined represent a $1.5bn (£1.07bn) market by 2020.