The advancement of technology in the biopharmaceutical industry has spearheaded the speed and scale of digitalization in various aspects. New drug development is becoming more complex, costly, and challenging. This paper examines how the pharmaceutical value chain model could integrate with the product-life-cycle perspective to better explain the drug development process changes and how the digital transformation could be implemented at each stage of the drug development process. We suggest a new framework to capture digital value creation in the biopharmaceutical industry by focusing on the specific processes in new drug development and integrating the product life cycle management and value chain model. The new framework has operational implications for the biopharmaceutical industry, where digital transformation can simplify and increase the efficiency in each phase, from drug discovery, clinical trials, regulatory, manufacturing, commercialization, to monitoring processes.

The healthcare and welfare policies of nations, as well as the amount of investments put into these areas, vary across countries. Investments in healthcare and welfare have been increasing worldwide which brings the question of assessing the efficiency of these investments. There are, however, difficulties in evaluating the effectiveness of such investments due to differences in countries’ economic development levels and due to the differences in data definition issues. There are only a limited number of studies in the literature that employ consistent and comparable indicators across countries. This study evaluates the healthcare investment efficiency and health competitiveness efficiency of 34 developing countries in Asia using a two-stage dynamic data envelopment analysis approach. Furthermore, we employ a broader measure of indicators on national healthcare and welfare policies and outcomes, in addition to the investment data on healthcare and welfare expenditures. Our findings indicate that the establishment of an investment environment with a consolidated approach and management is an important factor that increases the efficiency of investments in healthcare and welfare sectors. A consistent delivery of the national policy strategy is also crucial for reaching the medium-and long-term targets for each country. For example, if a country establishes healthcare and welfare policies that focus on improving its indicators with low efficiencies, the output will be improved and a better return on investment will be ensured in a long-term perspective.

The healthcare and pharmaceutical industries are rapidly changing under the digital transformation environment in the 2020s. Investments in this field are given priority, both at the business level and also at the national level, to enhance national competitiveness. However, a very limited number of studies examine the impact of digital transformation on the broader scope of the industry and national competitiveness. Furthermore, the existing studies and competitiveness indices focus rather on general country-level innovation indicators. To mend this gap and to provide a more specific framework to evaluate digital transformation in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries, this study proposes a new model called the Digital Double Diamond (DiDD), which is an extension of Porter’s Diamond model for national competitiveness. The DiDD model consists of three factors: endogenous factor, centric factor, and exogenous factor containing nine variables and 36 sub-variables that capture the impact of digital transformation in healthcare and pharmaceutical industries to assess national competitiveness. The new DiDD model emphasizes the importance of having a balance between the traditional national competitiveness and digital convergence elements in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries. As an illustration of the new DiDD model, we compare South Korea and Switzerland’s digital transformation competitiveness in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries.