There was a time when healthcare providers (HCPs) in India were more than clinicians. They were trusted family advisors who made house calls, and knew generations of patients. Care was personal, and treatments were shaped by an intimate understanding of each patient’s history and context.
Today, it’s a lot harder to deliver that kind of personalised care, as patient loads reach staggering heights. Leading hospitals see no less than millions of outpatients and hundreds of thousands of inpatients every year. With healthcare resources stretched thin, patients don’t always get the time or attention they deserve.
In pharma, arguably the biggest challenge is how to get life-saving drugs into the hands of people who need them – faster. The COVID-19 vaccine was developed in less than a year, but it remains the exception rather than the rule. Typically, new drugs take several years to reach the market.
That being said, both pharma and healthcare in India have made significant advances. The pharma sector, already the largest global supplier of generic medicines, is rapidly investing in biologics and next-generation therapies, while also fostering a vibrant biotech startup landscape. Nearly half of the world’s leading life sciences companies now run global capability centres (GCCs) in India, turning the country into a pharma innovation hub.
Meanwhile, the healthcare sector is gradually modernising healthcare information systems, using AI to augment clinical decision-making, and adopting wearables to track vital health signs in patients. Robotic-assisted surgeries are making procedures more efficient, while telemedicine is improving access to care in rural areas.
Now, it’s time to raise the bar. At last count, only 26% of patients in India felt cared for after their most recent healthcare interactions. Meanwhile, in pharma, 71% of HCPs feel overwhelmed by the content shared by pharma companies.
How does one overcome these roadblocks? How can pharma companies understand HCP needs better, while also accelerating drug lifecycles? How can HCPs ensure that patients feel supported at every touchpoint?
The answers may very well lie in a complete transformation:
- From fragmented patient data → unified, real-time patient views across systems
- From one-size-fits-all care → personalised engagement based on patient data
- From reactive service → predictive, preventive care powered by insights
- From siloed research, clinical, and commercial functions → end-to-end connected pharma ecosystems
- From generic outreach to HCPs → personalised, data-driven engagement
- From manual clinical trials → AI-enabled recruitment and faster trial execution
- From human-led workflows → AI-augmented automation at scale
- From compliance-heavy processes → built-in automated compliance and traceability
To make things simpler, let’s condense these transformation initiatives into four practical priorities for 2026 and beyond.
| Healthcare priorities | Pharma priorities |
| Unify patient data: Bring together all clinical and non-clinical data on a unified platform to create a complete view of each patient. This will enable informed, customised care across every interaction channel. | Enhance patient services: Increase productivity with automated electronic verification of care programme enrollees and benefits. Enrol eligible candidates faster with powerful recruitment tools and personalised messages that prevent attrition. |
| Personalise patient outreach: Move beyond one-size-fits-all healthcare campaigns. Engage patients with hyper-personalised, data-driven outreach across multiple channels. | Accelerate clinical trials: Speed up pharma innovation by connecting trial teams, patients and clinical data on a single digital platform. |
| Coordinate holistic care: Identify care gaps, and prioritise interventions based on a comprehensive view of patient data. Empower patients and care coordinators to collaboratively develop evidence-based care plans that address each patient’s unique needs. | Optimise HCP engagement: Connect sales and marketing into a unified view to drive dynamic, personalised HCP engagement. Package important information in a personalised portal with assistive agents and AI-curated promotional and scientific content. |
| Deliver health at home: Use an intelligent scheduling engine to offer personalised, convenient in-home or virtual appointments. Optimise visit routing, and automate home visit documentation. | Scale advanced therapies: Automate therapy orchestration. Support patient safety and compliance with full visibility into therapy journeys, from sampling through administration, on a connected platform. |
How to translate these priorities into action: 2 real-life examples
Narayana Health and Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, two Trailblazers in healthcare and pharma respectively, have done much to transform health outcomes in India.
Narayana Health, for example, unified data from multiple internal systems into a single patient view. This way, service reps can respond to patients with greater context and sensitivity. Moreover, automated service workflows and conversation guides help reps support patients faster, and equip them with the right information. The result? A 7% drop in average handle time and a 5% jump in appointment conversions.
Meanwhile, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories has connected 40+ systems and 750+ end-points to accelerate drug development and production. The pharma major also uses powerful marketing tools to personalise each HCP’s messaging to their unique demographics, operating segment, specialty, language, level of drug awareness, and other key parameters. Over 500,000 HCPs are expected to be engaged this way.
Delve deeper into these stories to learn how your healthcare or pharma company can achieve similar results.
How India’s Healthcare and Pharma Trailblazers Are Transforming Patient Outcomes
