Health Care

Companies in the healthcare sector are expected to combine the realization of a sustainable society with increases in their corporate values. Pharmaceutical and healthcare-related companies in particular champion improving access to medicine, creating transformative healthcare technologies, addressing climate change, and driving healthcare DX, with the aim of achieving SDG 3, “ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all.” They position these initiatives as key materialities and are advancing ESG data disclosure and the introduction of impact accounting.
At the same time, healthcare agencies and government are working to rebuild systems for healthcare as they look ahead to 2040. An aging society and changes in demographic movements across regions are driving increased demand for medical services in urban areas and declines in demand in underpopulated areas, necessitating the design and operation of healthcare models optimized for each, respectively. For example, in urban areas, governments are considering the reorganization of sickbed functions with a view to transition to in-home medical care, while in underpopulated areas, they are considering responses centered on nurses, utilizing MaaS or telemedicine.
From the perspective of government, improvements in coordination between local governments and medical agencies are being advanced with the aim of realizing the Regional Medical Vision. Proofs of concept (PoCs) aimed at formulating healthcare plans spanning multiple local governments and at optimal deployment of healthcare resources have been conducted. Analyses of the macro environment have also been carried out based on policy, demographic movements and technological transformations.
In healthcare agencies, initiatives are also underway seeking to combine streamlining with improvements to quality. Such initiatives include cybersecurity diagnostics projects, standardization and proliferation of electronic medical charts and digital transformation (DX) of diagnostic operations. Such efforts are creating an environment where medical personnel can dedicate themselves to more value-added work (diagnostics and patient care).
Looking at the field from the perspective of human capital management, developing and retaining specialist personnel who can take charge of healthcare DX is also an urgent task. The dearth of personnel versed in both IT and healthcare is a major challenge necessitating the establishment of systems for training and developing such personnel, as well as greater clarity in career paths.
Thus, it is important for companies, healthcare agencies and government, from their respective standpoints, to work to find solutions to social challenges, promote co-creation with other stakeholders by surfacing and disclosing the social impacts of their activities. In doing so, they should ensure that the outcomes of these efforts contribute to future value creation. In the healthcare sector, in particular, we have arrived at an age where efforts to improve the quality, efficiency and fairness of healthcare contribute directly to both achieving a sustainable society for all and increasing value for each participant, respectively.

Providing appropriate treatment opportunities to the right people at the right time is one of the most important missions of a healthcare industry which deals in pharmaceuticals and services that directly contribute to the lives and health of people.
On the other hand, industry participants have accumulated a plethora of issues to address in achieving this. Within Japan, shortages in the supply of pharmaceuticals are becoming chronic, and shortages of the personnel underpinning that supply are gradually manifesting themselves. On the global level, amid increased geopolitical risks, dependence on any particular country for bulk drugs or pharmaceuticals increases the risk of supply chain disruptions. This has made the strengthening of BCP measures, including supply chain diversification, early detection of information about supply instabilities, and cybersecurity, more important than ever.
Moves within the industry to strengthen supply chains are also advancing in response to these developments. Such moves include efforts to reconsider entire supply chains that had grown overly fragmented, and securing the capacity to onshore production as an option. Ideas have been put forward such as improving coordination between companies, beginning with pharmaceuticals and CDMOs or pharmaceutical wholesalers and healthcare agencies or pharmacies. Going forward, initiatives such as using new technologies including AI and digital twins to visualize conditions or enhance supply and demand forecasting, or even improving quality management and traceability, including the logistics process, are likely to make further progress.
Beyond even that, we can expect the industry to realize whole new value chains that transcend existing frameworks to go beyond the process of building traditional supply chains connecting companies, enabling the reliable delivery of treatment methods to individual patients and consumers.