From Bench to Bedside: Streamlining the Journey of Personalized Therapies in India

About Author: Vishal Goel, Managing Director, Rx Propellant has a rich experience of two decades in real estate advisory, strategy and life sciences industry. As the MD and Head of Alexandria India operations, he deployed over USD 200 million and personally managed development of over 1 million square feet of Lifesciences real estate assets. He has been instrumental in conceptualizing and developing ‘Genome Valley’ cluster in Hyderabad city.

Global healthcare is developing expeditiously with digital health technologies and tailored therapeutics leading the charge. These innovations enhance accessibility and efficiency, offering personalized care and reducing costs worldwide. In India, initiatives like the National Digital Health Mission, Unique Methods of Management and Treatment of Inherited Disorders (2019), and the Genome India Project (2020), are contributing to the development of targeted medicines and bridging gaps in healthcare. India’s emphasis on innovation and strengthening public health systems is being driven by adopting global technological advancements, strategic investments, and a growing focus on patient-centric care, making India’s healthcare and life science sectors shift gears. Central to this change is integrated laboratory and clinical services, which improve and optimize the precision of healthcare delivery, particularly personalized therapies.

Through integrated lab-clinic facilities offered by select life sciences real estate players in India, life science enterprises, especially the biopharmaceutical sector can optimize the development and delivery of personalized therapies, advancing innovation and improving patient outcomes.

Integrated lab-clinic facilities are particularly beneficial for therapies that require seamless collaboration between laboratory research and clinical applications. These may include:

Precision Medicine: Where genetic and molecular testing in the lab informs personalized treatment plans for patients.

Cell and Gene Therapies: Which involve complex laboratory processes to modify cells or genes before administration to patients.

Clinical Trials: Facilities that can host both laboratory analysis and patient monitoring are crucial for conducting efficient and effective clinical trials.

Diagnostic Testing: Laboratories that are closely integrated with clinical settings can provide rapid diagnostic results, improving patient care.

Regenerative Medicine: Therapies that involve the cultivation or modification of tissues or cells in the lab before clinical application.

Cancer Treatment: Facilities that combine laboratory testing (e.g., genomic profiling, drug sensitivity testing) with clinical oncology services for comprehensive cancer care.

Infectious Disease Management: Laboratories capable of rapid pathogen identification and drug susceptibility testing, integrated with clinical management of infectious diseases.

Integrated lab-clinic facilities enhance collaboration, efficiency, and patient care by narrowing the divide between scientific research and clinical practice in these and other advanced therapeutic areas.

Integrated lab-clinic spaces for better, faster outcomes

The ecosystem in such integrated spaces help centralize and synchronize processes, enabling adaptive trial designs based on real-time data and improving speed and flexibility in decision-making, which is more efficient and cost-effective than traditional methods.

Facilitating cross-functional collaboration within the organization

Real-time data exchange and collaboration between laboratory researchers and clinical practitioners are critical for furthering medical research and improving patient outcomes. Integrated life science labs facilitate this synergistic effort better than traditional labs by providing seamless access to data across departments and enabling immediate analysis and decision-making. Researchers can utilize the real time data points to quickly validate hypotheses, optimize experimental protocols, and identify potential drug candidates, leading to faster and more efficient drug discovery and development processes. Collaborative workstations with access to shared databases and analytical tools can streamline data sharing and analysis. Given these benefits, life sciences real estate companies are focusing on layouts and designs that promote communication, collaboration, and knowledge-sharing.

Optimized workflow with tech-powered integrated lab-clinic facilities

Digital technologies and data analytics are instrumental in improving the workflow, especially within new-age integrated labs in life science clusters. These technologies help systematize operations and enhance efficiency, advancing patient care through personalized interactions and data-driven decision-making. For example, Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) and Electronic Health Records (EHR) help reduce errors and boost efficiency by automating processes such as data entry and result reporting. Advanced analytics tools allow researchers to extract valuable insights from large datasets, improving diagnostic accuracy, predicting patient outcomes, and optimizing resource allocation.

Navify, a digital solutions portfolio developed by Roche, illustrates how integrated lab-clinic spaces can enhance operational efficiency, reduce costs, and improve productivity by leveraging technology. The Navify Analytics suite provides valuable insights that help optimize workflows, manage staffing, and improve diagnostic test turnaround times. It also offers real-time reporting of key performance indicators, events, and alerts, allowing managers to quickly address issues and maintain quality. It supports data-driven course of action and improves clinical and operational outcomes, ensuring secure and compliant operations in line with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Similarly, Novartis is developing new therapies based a strong data foundation that can analyse large datasets of research papers, scientific publications, and control group data, and using predictive algorithms, to make better business decisions. Technologies like remote monitoring, IoT devices, and wearable technologies improve patient care and present a more comprehensive view of patient health, enabling proactive interventions.

Benefits of personalized therapies through lab-clinic integration

Integrated lab-clinic spaces streamline the delivery of personalized therapies by bringing together necessary resources, including laboratory facilities, medical professionals, and data analysis capabilities. This optimization of resources leads to more efficient use of healthcare resources and improved patient outcomes.

Researchers can gain insights into treatment effectiveness and identify new opportunities for improvement by collecting and analyzing data from patients receiving personalized therapies. Besides, integrated lab-clinic spaces enable the customization of therapies to individual patients based on genetic makeup, lifestyle, and environmental factors. This targeted approach reduces the need for trial-and-error, improving treatment efficacy and potentially lowering healthcare costs. GSK’s AI-driven clinical decision-making for developing personalized cancer medicine is a case in point. While initial costs for personalized therapies might be higher, the long-term cost savings can be substantial.

Developing integrated lab-clinic infrastructure in India: A roadmap for stakeholders

In India, developing and expanding integrated lab-clinic infrastructure are decisive in promoting personalized treatment methodologies such as biologics and immunotherapies. Companies such as ImmunoACT and Immuneel, both pioneering CAR-T cell therapy for cancer treatment, exemplify leveraging multi-process and multi-product lab facilities to streamline the development, testing, and deployment of advanced personalized therapies for improved patient outcomes. Similarly, biosimilars are set to democratize access to biologics, making personalized treatments more readily available and effective across diverse patient populations. For example, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals’ initiative to introduce Lirafit, a biosimilar of liraglutide, aims to make treatments for obesity and diabetes more affordable and accessible within India.

Considering these developments, policymakers should incentivize the integration of clinical and public health requirements to support integrated lab-clinic infrastructure in India to ensure that healthcare facilities cater not only to individual patient needs but also align with broader public health objectives. Along with funds for infrastructure development, incentives would encourage healthcare researchers to adopt this integrated model, leading to more efficient healthcare delivery, enhanced data sharing for improved disease surveillance, and better quality of care.  Investors too should focus on modernizing laboratory infrastructure and support public-private partnerships to extend the reach of integrated lab-clinic services. Working in tandem with government initiatives like the Pradhan Mantri Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission is crucial for industry stakeholders developing cost-effective solutions for integrated lab-clinic facilities to ensure economic and locational feasibility. When implemented cohesively, these measures can drive the development and expansion of integrated lab-clinic infrastructure in India, addressing key healthcare challenges and improving overall healthcare delivery.

*Views expressed by the author are his own.