Analyzing the IT architecture landscape in the biopharma Industries

Abstract

As Charles Darwin explained his theory of evolution "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent but the one that is most responsive to change". This statement holds good for the role of IT in the Biopharma world. Today the role of IT is rapidly evolving, and the IT organization's role has shifted from being a technologist to the role of change agent. This is mainly driven by the technological advancements in finding new drugs at a faster pace. This is expected to undergo this transformation for a foreseeable future. The IT organization should ensure that it is led by business priorities rather than delivering the business solutions and at a lower cost. This can be done through the organizational design, process and governance. The IT strategy must function in lock steps with the business strategy. The biopharmaceutical industry is experiencing a strong growth over the past decade compared to the other industries.

Almost all the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies are under tremendous pressure from the government agencies such as FDA and other financial regulations to ensure compliance as well as provide therapies to the patients at a reduced cost. With the new trends like predictive analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Digital medicine and Outcome based pricing models, it is very important for the IT function within the biopharma organizations to innovate itself constantly. Maintaining the right balance between organizational performance and value delivery are the key drivers for architecting the IT enterprise. The research explores different architectural approaches through various different lens from a business point of view, stakeholder point of view, regulatory point of view etc. to determine the optimal organizational structure for an enterprise IT group in a biopharma organization.

The thesis also discusses the pros and cons of different types of IT organizational models and provides a recommendation on the future IT enterprise.