IE Students Talk Pharma Trends

Left to right: Renzo Ernesto Cornejo Rojas, Pedro Álvarez de la Gala, Alejandro Parralejo, Fatima Perez Satre and Shibanshu Mukhopadhyay.

Club holds first face-to-face event after pandemic.

The IE Pharma & Healthcare Club hosted the panel “New Trends in the Pharmaceutical Industry” as the club’s first in-person event in more than a year, offering IE Business School students an opportunity to network with industry insiders. 

The talk, backed by IE Campus Life, addressed a range of topics, including the challenges and opportunities facing the industry amid the Covid-19 crisis, digitalization, access to markets, the role of governments and compliance in the pharmaceutical sector among others. 

IE Pharma & Healthcare Club Co-President and MBA student Shibanshu Mukhopadhyay said the club's aim with the first face-to-face event since the beginning of the pandemic was to give a platform for the IE community to learn about the pharma sector and to foment networking. 

“The idea of the Pharmaceutical Club is to connect alumni, students, and current people in the industry, and look at how we can create an ecosystem to help each other.”
Shibanshu Mukhopadhyay, IE Pharma & Healthcare Club Co-President and MBA student

Event organizer and IE Pharma & Healthcare officer Renzo Ernesto Cornejo added how important it is to stay updated from insiders on the trends in the sector. 

The event featured three professionals from the sector: Fatima Perez Satre, Digital Business Partner at Novartis; Pedro Álvarez de la Gala, Head of Digital Transformation & Innovation at Novartis and Alejandro Parralejo, Clinical Scientific Liaison at Savana. 

Organizers selected Perez-- with a background in bioengineering-- and Álvarez with one in business, to provide a holistic outlook with insights on how new trends and technology affect treatments in development and business more generally. 

Perez emphasized the impact of Covid-19 in demonstrating the importance of cooperation. He said people have become more aware of the pharmaceutical industry’s relevance in their lives. He also highlighted how emerging technologies and changes in culture and employee diversity have become prominent.

“Out of all the transformations occurring due to new technologies, one of the industries where the impact is most visible is in the health sector.”
Pedro Álvarez de la Gala, Head of Digital Transformation & Innovation at Novartis

“In order to innovate, we must collaborate and work with people from different academic and professional backgrounds.”

Parralejo drew on his work at international medical company Savana, focused on research through the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). 

“Today, with telemonitoring, virtual assistants and so on, we may have a patient’s whole journey which improves the way they are assisted,” Parralejo explained. “Also, this helps the pharmaceutical industry gain a lot of points in improving and helping physicians in order to treat patients better.”

Attendees asked questions on a diversity of issues, including the role of blockchain in protecting patient information and the potential future of the industry as it becomes more data driven.