Why Cybersecurity Is Becoming A Top Priority For Drug Makers

In the last ten years, we’ve witnessed a dramatic rise in the number of novel disease outbreaks globally. Leading pharmaceutical companies have been working rigorously to develop newer drugs to effectively counter these threats. The relentless pressure to innovate and produce medicines has pushed major drug companies to embrace digital technology. And as the pharma industry moves towards complete digitalization, the shadow of cyber threats now looms larger than ever. This is evident from the startling levels of sophistication in cybercrimes this millennium has seen already. Pharmaceutical companies need to be vigilant and proactive to prevent the security breaches caused by external as well as internal actors. A failure to keep data security measures updated can prove disastrous for drug companies in several ways.

- Sonit Jain, CEO, GajShield Infotech

The issues that can stem from weak or incoherent cyber protection include:

PATIENT DATA LEAKS

Pharmaceutical companies are gradually moving towards becoming more patient-centric. They store information about individual customers to serve them in a more personalized way. A Cambridge-based biotech company offers a good example of deploying a more patient-centric approach towards drug formulation. The biotech company had collaborated with Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD), an advocacy group, and had used the latter’s patient preference study to get faster approval for the first disease-modifying therapy for the Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. A compromise in the confidential data can be dangerous for the customer. Moreover, a data leak will end up having legal ramifications for a pharmaceutical company. The pharma company must, therefore, be extra careful with this data to maintain consumer relationships and avoid litigation.

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