Common Pharmaceutical Trends to Watch in 2019

As a pharmaceutical supplier, you need to stay on top of the latest trends and innovations shaking up the industry. If you don’t pay attention to these trends and use them to expand your business in a wise and orderly fashion, there is a good chance that you’ll end up losing to your competition. The following trends are among the most likely to emerge in 2019 and could change the industry in a variety of ways.

Increased Focus on Singular Manufacturers

One element that may surprise you is the fact that a growing number of pharmaceutical suppliers are relying on an increasingly lower number of manufacturers. For example, in 2016, the average manufacturer handled by a typical supplier was as low as 1,211. These numbers have dropped by over 20 percent since 2014 and continue to decline into 2019.

This trend indicates that fewer and fewer companies are handling more and more orders. As a result, shipping times could be increased and orders more difficult to make due to an increased emphasis on fewer individual shippers. As a result, you need to plan for these possible issues to ensure that your goods always show up to the proper buyer.

Electronic Ordering Expansion

In the past, pharmaceutical orders were often either made by the mail, on the phone, or in person. However, online or electronic ordering systems are becoming, quickly, the most prominent type of system available on the market. For example, as recently as 2016, about 93 percent of all pharmaceutical distributors did business on an online platform.

Phone orders had dropped to just six percent of all orders while fax orders account for only one percent of all orders. As you can see, in-person or by-mail orders had dropped so significantly to barely register on the chart at all. If you still try to do business with any of these outdated methods, you need to update your pharmaceutical supply and shipping methods to remain relevant.

Data Management Upgrades

High-quality data management services have become the most important way of tracking pharmaceutical sales. For example, data management was utilized in a broad variety of services – including new product launches, specialty pharmaceutical products, and promotional material – to increase their appeal and spread across the industry.

Data management can take on many different elements in this industry, including cloud-based storage, tracking the use of various medicines across specific sectors of the nation, and even gauging the possibility of recall. Fully understanding where all of your pharmaceutical products go helps to ensure that your delivery is smooth and that fewer mistakes are made every day.

Don’t Neglect These Changes

These trends are things that any pharmaceutical supplier who wants to succeed really needs to track in the near future. Though patterns such as these often come and go in the industry, some become so ingrained in the fabric of business operation that they transform the landscape forever. So make sure to stay abreast of these changes to avoid getting left behind by any of your competitors.