Data-Driven Decisions: The Business Advantage

Shobie’s background includes training in hardware and electronic engineering which led to her initial career in the research and development of television and computer monitors. This role allowed her to discover her love for algorithms and software development. This started her natural foray into software as a source of impact for business and then as her level of digitalization progressed so did the natural foray into data and analytics.

The other guest Alex started his career as an analyst in a large consultancy company. His role included data analytics and as he progressed he realized if you can understand the data, you can understand the business and this has led him to his current role of combining strategy enterprise information management with data.

The guests then discussed data-driven decisions. Alex said there needs to be good knowledge and confidence in your information which requires good data and data needs to reflect on the situation’s reality. Shobie highlighted that scientific data is used to make discovery decisions and clinical data is used throughout clinical development within the pharmaceutical industry. Data is also used to make supply chain decisions, commercial, sales and marketing decisions etc. She then went on to say the frontier that the industry is pushing right now is the power of combining the data-based insights that they get with the power of automation, because computers are available at scale and really integrating it into the core of their business.

Shobie then spoke about GSK, GSK is a global biopharma company, they make medicines and vaccines that prevent and treat disease and they have an ambition to reach and positively impact the lives of 2.5 billion people on the planet by 2030. Biotechnology is a fairly new industry reaching its 50^th anniversary in 2026. Shobie believes technology is an important element to their strategy and over the next decade it will be placed at the core of GSK alongside uniting science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease cohesively.

Alex then went on to explain that technology has always supported the business for example the predictive analytics and machine learning of preventative health problems in areas such as diabetes type one and two space. That kind of learning is how one may harness technology to drive business outcomes and value or outcomes for patients. Alex mentioned the importance of agility and being able to direct the business not using technology as the anchor but as the driving force.

The guests then spoke about the speed of development within the industry. Shobie said most of her career she has lived in the fast-paced Silicon Valley for example where Apple turned itself around from being a company that was nearly bankrupt to the mega-company that it is today. Another example is, Google and Meta didn’t exist a few decades ago. Shobie highlighted that the rate of acceleration will continue to increase, especially what is happening with generative AI. Alex  mentioned that as companies question, how do they handle, protect and govern the speed of generative AI, directly indicates the speed of it.

Shobie spoke about GSK’s current strategy she said it is to really deliver transformational medicines and vaccines. They currently use a business strategy that allows them to thrive in the digital world. The technology, priorities and KPIs that they have set up directly line up with the business priorities and KPIs. The first priority is how data and technology, in particular, AI and machine learning can accelerate their drug discovery and clinical development process as an industry where 90% of ideas fail they could use all they help they can get. Their second priority is to consider how their supply chain and manufacturing can benefit from digital innovation. The third priority is how can they further engage their customers driven through data and technology and therefore, making sure they’re reaching healthcare providers and patients. Shobie mentioned a fourth priority which was to recognise the amazing people at GSK that make all this happen.

She then went on to describe an example seen at GSK, she said data and technology in drug discovery help them prioritize targets by understanding genetic evidence, the causal genes that mark the disease. In 2022 they had 45 data-driven validated targets, which was a fivefold increase compared to 2017. In clinical development, GSK get specific about using data to revolutionize the way they think about document authoring, so they consider how data can model scenarios to design better clinical trials as well as optimize the clinical trial protocols. During the manufacturing process data and technology can allow them to model real time manufacturing scenarios which they call digital twins. GSK have had success in one of their respiratory medicines, where they have 10% more productivity in the yield of that medicine through the use of these digital twins. They have examples of just over a million extra doses of their shingles vaccine that they were able to bring forward so it can help prevent shingles for adults who suffer from that really terrible disease – which was made possible by data and AI.

Alex talked about the usage of data and technology from the perspective of the UN, the World Economic Forum which are driving the way of the world. He mentioned that the pharmaceutical industry is leading the way in many ways in aspects of AI and the usage data but if one considers the broader spectrum of the industry, people are moving away from centric and efficiency process-driven organizations to more human-centric where the organizations is empowering people to make decisions with data and being resilient to any change enabling these things to occur. Alex highlights the speed of how when he was a child he would listen to Encyclopaedia Britannica on a CD to get his facts now you can talk to your phone and get a distinct immediate answer.

Alex then spoke about external factors that are impacting business, for example what is the climate change agenda in regards to data. For example, the development of carbon credits, carbon trading, it will become a social credit linked to financial ledgers. He said that data will enable your credit score of your social corporate responsibility and that will be logged it is not just about finance anymore. Being able to combine datasets together and being able to look at patterns that haven’t yet veen recognized will help businesses improve their KPIs or sustainability drivers. Shobie then added that at GSK as many other companies have developed sensible ESG agendas that allow them to own their own responsibility in authentic ways. Such as access to medicines is something that GSK an uniquely contribute to when it comes to overall ESG agendas. GSK are committed to making their supply chain sustainability friendly and they have signed up to specific targets surrounding that and that is underpinned by sensible clean data and making sure they are making data-driven decisions that are responsible for GSK. GSK are also helping supplier choices by moving most of their data centre footprint into a cloud that hyperscale’s have signed up to.

Sobie then discussed how they integrate good data practice into a large organisation such as GSK. She said that at GSK they believe data and technology is just a tool in the human tool kit to achieve the innovation and the performance and the trust agenda they have for their company. GSK have made significant investment and have placed an enormous amount of focus on developing their people and ensuring that they are increasing the digital fluency and the data fluency of their company broadly. 3 years ago they started a internal data conference to educate their own called DataCon where they brought together 400 data and analytics practitioners and then this year 7,000 people (which is nearly 10% of GSK) voluntarily signed up to get educated on generative AI and how to get better at prompt engineering. Shobie highlighted how this is inspiring and is a factor that keeps her motivated.

She also said that keeping up with changing technology is just the world we live in and if anything this pace will accelerate further. The ability for AI to make technology more ambient means some of these other innovations, like spatial computing as well as neurotechnology, etc, are all going to come into play much faster. She said the world data and technology leaders live in is the ‘never normal’ a phrase used by her favourite author – Peter Hinson. Shobie talked about her friend/futurist called Bob Johanses and said when they talk about operating in what they call the VUCA world (volatile, unpredictable, complex, and ambiguous) he talked about the importance of leadership, and he says that the future will reward clarity and punish certainty. Therefore, it’s really important for leaders to be really clear about where we are going, but maintain this incredible agility to adapt to the ever-changing world around us in terms of how we get there and stay focused.

Alex reinforced Shobie’s point by highlighting the seismic shift that was COVID and how people had to adapt at speed and the way people had to adapt was a good exercise to understand how to set up. He added infrastructure, technology, and data need to be accessible in order to empower people to have accountability within the business acting as a driver, not an anchor.

Shobie added that AI is not new in the pharmaceutical industry, they have spent over the last 5 years building capabilities to focus on how AIMl can help them process enormous amounts if data at pace and generate better-validated targets. She said ethical considerations, defensive considerations and talent considerations are top priorities for Shobie when it comes to the adoption of AI. Alex said the use of AI in contracts, is particularly beneficial and its uses in the manufacturing processes. He did then mention that governance within the AI space is playing catch up due to the shear pace of the industry. Shobie then said GSK have launched an AI code that connects it to their core code of conduct for GSK. Three things that Shobie believes to be achieving the business advantage of AI are, alignment to your core purpose, recognition and sponsorship from the top of the house and talent.