Top 10: RPA in Pharmaceuticals

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) uses automated bots to emulate human actions in digital systems, usually focused on handling repetitive tasks such as data entry.

Many of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies are leveraging RPA to automate tasks, including regulatory compliance, clinical trial data and supply chain management.

As the pharmaceutical sector is approaching Pharma 4.0, which aims to digitise the industry, companies are integrating technologies to increase efficiency in production.

Healthcare Digital explores the Top 10 pharmaceutical companies in the world using RPA, ranked by market capitalisation.

10. Novo Nordisk

RPA focus: Clinical trials
CEO: Maziar Mike Doustdar
Market cap: US$177bn
HQ: Bagsværd, Denmark

Novo Nordisk is working on automating the setup of its clinical trial systems.

It is developing a system called Open Study Builder, which uses metadata to define protocols, making them data-driven.

It can then automatically extract endpoints and key data points and load them into its clinical systems, allowing for automated system setup.

This can help manage the increasing volume of data generated from clinical trials, formatting and preparing the data for submission.

9. Gilead Sciences

RPA focus: Data management
CEO: Daniel O’Day
Market cap: US$184.9bn
HQ: Foster City, California, US

Gilead Sciences uses Blue Prism for its RPA, which involves managing data as well as ensuring regulatory compliance.

Its teams identify, design and build automated solutions to help the company run more efficiently.

The company uses RPA to increase productivity, streamline data management and accelerate drug development.

This involves organising data from multiple systems and enhancing Gilead’s ability to pull insights from regulatory, compliance, supply chain and manufacturing data to help streamline its operations.

8. Amgen

RPA focus: Internal workflows
CEO: Robert A. Bradway
Market cap: US$209.2bn
HQ: Thousand Oaks, California, US

Amgen’s main focus in its use of RPA is automating lengthy tasks.

This includes automating the manual entry of invoices and other forms, as well as using RPA bots to manage HR tasks similar to human employees.

It focuses on data processing across systems, as well as communication with vendors.

Brian D’Souza, Director of Digital Technology & Innovation at Amgen, said: “The key differentiator is that automation helps us free up resources and time, which means that there’s money and time that can be spent in research so we can come up with the next big drug that can help save millions of lives.”

7. Merck & Co

RPA focus: Data management
CEO: Robert Davis
Market cap: US$300.1bn
HQ: Rahway, New Jersey, US

Merck & Co uses RPA to enhance efficiency in its pharmaceutical manufacturing, supply chain management and administrative functions.

It often integrates these processes with AI as well as RPA, in order to speed up drug development.

It uses AI-powered platforms, including automation processes, to accelerate the creation of clinical study reports.

This helps reduce the time required to draft these reports, helping to make drugs available quicker.

6. AstraZeneca

RPA focus: Clinical trials
CEO: Pascal Soriot
Market cap: US$302bn
HQ: Cambridge, UK

In 2023, AstraZeneca launched Evinova, a health-tech business within the company, focusing on digital health solutions. 

Evinova’s solutions are designed to optimise clinical trial design and delivery.

This helps reduce the time and cost of developing new medicines, which can reduce the burden on health systems and make care more accessible to patients.

Its RPA solutions also aim to be used for digital remote patient monitoring and digital therapeutics.

Pascal Soriot, CEO of AstraZeneca, said: “The future of medicine development can be accelerated with digital solutions.

“We believe Evinova’s combination of scientific expertise and track record in developing AI-enabled digital technologies at scale, provides a real opportunity to fundamentally improve patient care.”

5. Novartis

RPA focus: Compliance
CEO: Vasant Narasimhan
Market cap: US$315bn
HQ: Basel, Switzerland

Novartis has adopted RPA in its operations to handle high-volume, rule-based tasks, which is helping to solve inefficiencies.

It is used for invoice processing, handling HR forms and compliance workflows.

This allows staff to be redeployed elsewhere so their time is more efficiently used for analytical or strategic tasks.

The company shows how automation can be scaled across the organisation, handling tasks that would otherwise be time-consuming in a way that is much more mindful of resources, time and costs.

4. Roche

RPA focus: Drug discovery
CEO: Thomas Schinecker
Market cap: US$343bn
HQ: Basel, Switzerland

In its laboratories, Roche adopts digital solutions to help improve efficiency and reduce errors in results.

It uses a digital sample tracking system which can follow a sample from start to finish, helping strengthen operational efficiency.

In this setting, scientists can leverage AI-driven robotics to reduce manual burdens.

Roche has created a digital lab ecosystem that can resolve problems and minimise errors, as well as getting results to clinicians faster to help improve patient outcomes.

3. AbbVie

RPA focus: Compliance
CEO: Robert Michael
Market cap: US$410.4bn
HQ: North Chicago, Illinois, US

AbbVie uses RPA for data and compliance workflows, helping it automate patient data management and compliance-related operational tasks.

It applies tools like Blue Prism to streamline its workflows, reduce manual errors and accelerate operational timelines across research and manufacturing.

It uses RPA alongside AI for data standardisation, with a focus on case study reports and safety update reports.

AbbVie also deploys RPA for its supply chain management, using it to analyse demand, manage inventory levels and monitor potential disruptions in the supply chain.

2. Johnson & Johnson

RPA focus: Finance
CEO: Joaquin Duato
Market cap: US$598.7bn
HQ: New Brunswick, New Jersey, US

Johnson & Johnson works on integrating RPA with machine learning and AI to help automate more complex tasks than the ones each method usually tackles.

It started using RPA for simple business tasks like documentation, spreadsheets and email integration, before growing its use in recent years.

The company has used automations to generate data showing that the digital-first mindset can lead to more accurate results.

Stephen Sorensen, Senior VP Innovative Medicine Technology, Global Supply Chain at Johnson & Johnson, says: “If you thought about it differently, you could actually automate the steps so that they were more accurate and build in detection so that you could find issues where things were failing historically, or even reconciliation steps that allowed us to confirm that things were working all along.”

Johnson & Johnson’s use of RPA allows employees to focus on higher-skilled work, allowing them to focus on innovation within the company rather than simple administrative tasks.

1. Eli Lilly & Company

RPA focus: HR & Marketing
CEO: David A. Ricks
Market cap: US$939.8bn
HQ: Indianapolis, Indiana, US

In Japan, Eli Lilly & Company has deployed RPA bots to automate manual processes for its 2,200 sales representatives.

Automated tasks include payment confirmations for doctors, personalised letters and enhancing engagement.

The aim of this is to transform customer engagement in order to create competitive advantage as well as improving patient health outcomes.

The use of RPA has allowed for US$1.75m in cost savings from increased efficiency in staff workloads.

Eli Lilly plans to continue using RPA in its operations, scaling these solutions to bring a positive impact across its global workforce.

It aims to use automation to reduce the operational overhead that sales representatives have to deal with, especially with increasing regulatory mandates in the sector.

Eli Lilly is seeking to deploy Automation Anywhere’s IQ Bot cognitive automation to help process invoices and review content for compliance.

The company has more than 8,000 medical and promotional materials that must be reviewed annually, meaning that automation can help improve efficiency while ensuring regulatory compliance.