Pharmaceutical companies tinker with digital future

adminonAugust 2, 2022Leave a Comment

A balancing belt between trees, beanbags, several huts around it: The "BI X" digital laboratory at Boehringer Ingelheim, which has been in operation for about a year, doesn't look at all like the premises of a pharmaceutical company. Where the guest canteen used to be housed, IT specialists are now tinkering with new product ideas, beyond pills or capsules. Flat-screen monitors line one wall in "BI X". They show the status of the work of five teams pursuing various pilot projects.

Boehringer is looking for new business models in the digital environment, says "BI X" head Heiko Schmidt to the Deutsche Presse Agentur. The laboratory, in which the Ingelheim-based company invested around ten million euros at the start of the project, works together with all Group divisions. The aim, he says, is to test new ideas for technical feasibility and potential benefits in a short space of time and to develop working prototypes within a few months. Initial projects have been completed, such as a digital portal for exchanges between pet owners and veterinarians.

What will come on the market is not foreseeable

"In the U.S., pet owners have recently been able to arrange and conduct virtual doctor visits via video instead of having to drive to the doctor's office with their pet," Schmidt explains. In artificial intelligence, teams are working on ways to use learning algorithms to better diagnose diseases. What will end up on the market is not yet foreseeable. Many things have to be tried, says Boehringer's Germany boss Stefan Rinn. There is always a risk that something will not work, even after months of work.

Like Boehringer, others in the industry are experimenting in new fields, such as Merck in Darmstadt, Germany. The group opened its new innovation center for the 350th anniversary celebrations in May. The futuristic building made of concrete and glass cost around 69 million euros. On six floors, there are modern offices, conference rooms, recreation zones, an auditorium and a work zone with laser cutting and 3D printers.

The goal is "a creative and agile environment where curious minds come together to develop new technologies for our future business," Merck CEO Stefan Oschmann said at the opening ceremony. The center is home to 150 internal and external employees.

For instance, they are working on biotech solutions for meat grown in the lab from tie and simple quantities in the human body for data-based disease treatments. The third important area is technologies to detect and treat diseases based on traces in blood samples.

565 startups also applied for a spot at the center. Ten are to be awarded the contract and move in in January. Merck is paying a lot for the prospect of ideas from outside the company: The companies receive offices, training and up to 50 employees over a period of three months.000 euros.

Specialists are wanted

The hip innovation center is also intended to show that the rather conservative family-owned company Merck is opening up and is competitive as an employer. Because software developers and scientists are in demand in the shortage of skilled workers: According to the digital association Bitkom, Germany alone lacks 55.000 IT specialists.

Software specialists and data scientists are sought after by companies in many sectors of the economy, explains Thilo Kaltenbach, a healthcare expert at the consulting firm Roland Berger. Pharmaceutical companies would therefore have to present themselves attractively. This can be achieved through collaboration on exciting innovations, involvement in strategic decision-making processes, but also through personal ies such as appreciation, flexible working hours or home office solutions.

The problem can be that it's not easy to assess what added value innovation centers bring in terms of revenue and profit, says the consultant. While everyone is convinced of the benefits and importance of digitization and artificial intelligence. In the medium term, however, there is a need for objectively measurable success criteria.

International teams

"We need to recruit internationally," Boehringer's "BI X" lab chief Schmidt also says. The working language is English, 51 people from 19 nations are employed here, most of them less than 30 years old. Unlike in the past, the sought-after experts cannot be lured with company cars, but rather with flights home to their parents.

In Boehringer's lab, teams only become active when no start-up is yet working on a similar idea, i.e., there is not yet a solution on the market, as Schmidt says. It is important for the teams to sit together in Ingelheim. "Our experience has been that virtual teams don't work like that. We don't have much time."

The classic development of active ingredients is very heavily regulated, while working in innovation centers is something new, says Kaltenbach. It is also important for the pharmaceutical industry not to leave the field to tech companies such as Google or Amazon. "Businesses are going through a bit of a revolution here right now."

Sick leave by phone – that is due to the situation surrounding the Coronavirus Possible since March. Now the arrangement has been extended to 18. May, it would otherwise have expired on 4. May expired. This was announced by the Joint Federal Committee (G-BA) on Wednesday.

The extension takes place "due to the continuing crisis situation" to prevent further spread of the coronavirus. Patients can thus for the time being continue to be certified as unfit for work for a maximum of one week after taking a medical history by telephone. Sick leave can be extended once if illness persists.

The regulation had been decided in March by the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV) together with the umbrella organization of the statutory health insurance funds. Everything you need to know about this exemption:

Sick leave on the phone: To whom does the regulation apply??

workers suffering from a mild respiratory illness – such as a a cold or a flu-like infection -, do not need to be examined by a doctor in person. You can take a sick leave after consulting a doctor by phone.

After the telephone anamnesis, the doctor sends the patient the Certificate of Incapacity (AU) by mail to.

AU certificate by telephone: Who is exempt from the rule?

If a patient shows severe symptoms, he is exempt from the new rule. Also, those who had contact with a person in the 14 days prior to becoming ill with the new Coronavirus has been detected, or who has been in an area with Covid 19 cases, falls off the grid.

Coronavirus: telephone sick leave was extended

Basically, this includes all people who meet criteria set by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for a suspected infection with Covid-19 meet. All such individuals should continue to be tested by designated agencies to slow the spread of the virus. Read here: Suspicion of Covid-19 – how to act?

For how long can the telephone AU be ied?

A doctor can ie the "yellow slip" by telephone for a maximum of seven days exhibit. It can be renewed once.

Why did KBV and GKV-Spitzenverband introduce the new regulation?

Phone sick leave option should ease burden on both doctors and patients. On the one hand, healthcare experts are thus addressing patients' concerns about possibly contracting the coronavirus only when they visit their doctor in the waiting room. On the other hand, there is the goal of relieving doctors' practices.

"At the same time, the risk of avoidable spread of infectious diseases of the upper respiratory tract via the waiting rooms of doctors' offices should be reduced," the deputy chairman of the KBV, Dr. Stephan Hofmeister, quoted in a press release.

How long does the exemption last?

The special regulation to the AU certificate by telephone applied starting from 9. March initially for 4 weeks, that is, until Sunday, 5. April. Since the first decision, the rule has already been extended twice. However, there was also a dispute about this. In mid-April, the Joint Federal Committee (G-BA) of doctors, hospitals and health insurers had decided to dissolve the special rule. There had been massive criticism of this. Now the exemption has been extended again.

Early practice. And those who don't practice early will be left behind. According to new analyses, children in Germany are moving a little more on average and the number of overweight first-graders is declining slightly – but that is no reason to breathe a sigh of relief, says the dpa. On the contrary: "The gap between very fit children and those who don't exercise at all is widening," says Alexander Woll from the Institute for Sports and Sports Science (IfSS) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). "There are more and more children with motor problems."

The researchers' findings are based, among other things, on the long-term study "Motorik-Modul," in which the motor skills of nearly 5,000 children and adolescents between the ages of 4 and 17 were recorded between 2003 and 2006 and between 2009 and 2012. The children had to do push-ups, run backwards, hop or jump. The comparison between the two study periods – the results have only been available for a short time – showed a slight upward trend. But, "35 percent of 4- to 17-year-olds, for example, can't take three steps backward on a three-inch-wide bar," Woll says.

Woll, who has overseen the study from the beginning and will continue it in several waves until 2021, concludes: "Even if the negative trend has stopped for the time being, the situation is still very bad." While society has never been as sporty as it is now. "At the same time, however, lack of exercise has never before been as big a problem as it is today." Movement paradox he calls it.

According to Woll, there is an enormous range of organized sports in schools, sports clubs and fitness clubs throughout Germany. But this cannot compensate for what society has lost in "unorganized sport" – kicking on the street, for example, or playing in the woods. "Children have lost many of their everyday spaces for movement," also says Swantje Scharenberg, who heads the Research Center for School Sports and Sports for Children and Adolescents (FoSS) in Karlsruhe, Germany.

She takes a positive view of the fact that all-day schools are being expanded almost across the board and that more and more sports are being offered there, also in cooperation with sports clubs. This is one of the reasons why children are getting more exercise on average. According to Pia Janben, a sports orthopedist at the University Hospital in Tubingen, one danger here is that "the more organized the sport, the more one-sided the child's strain will be."

So there is a need for action: Parents must be brought on board and set a good example. In elementary schools, there are up to 900 minutes of pure recess time per week – "which could be used for physical activity if, for example, the recess yard offers incentives such as a slackline for movement or the children can borrow balls," says Scharenberg. Primary school teachers also teach sport, often without having studied sport, and therefore urgently need more further training.

"Overall, the periods of inactivity are simply increasing," Woll explains. "There are kids who are quite strong in media, in passivity."According to its figures, around 60 percent of boys and 50 percent of girls spend three hours or more a day in front of screens of some kind. "Less than one-third of children and adolescents achieve the physical activity recommendation of at least 60 minutes per day."

The fact that the number of elementary school children enrolled in sports clubs, for example, has now risen to 80 percent doesn't change anything. "That says nothing about how intensively active these children are there," explains sports scientist Woll. The German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) does not have any figures on this.

Also, according to the Employers' Association of German Fitness and Health Facilities (DSSV), more and more minors are flocking to studios, especially in the discount sector. However, according to a spokesperson, these are mostly young people over the age of 16. Although there are also providers with special courses, for example, for overweight children under ten who already suffer from diabetes or high blood prere. "But these are still a marginal phenomenon in the market so far," the spokesman says. There are no figures on this.

According to the researchers, parents and teachers continue to focus far too much on the intellectual abilities of the child. Education experts spoke highly of early education in math, German, English. "No one is talking about early development of motor skills," Woll complains. "In the process, if you don't provide enough opportunities for movement, you deprive children of fundamental developmental opportunities." Sports orthopedist Janben recommends: "Get out on the street, kick, climb and brawl."

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