Maximising value by uniting the digital backbone: On a new Novo Nordisk and Veeva partnership

This podcast episode details a new strategic partnership between Novo Nordisk and Veeva, focusing on clinical development and broader R&D and quality operations. The discussion, featuring Stephanie Bova, Chief Digital Officer at Novo Nordisk, and Rik van Mol, SVP R&D and Quality at Veeva, explores how this collaboration aims to maximize value by uniting Novo Nordisk's digital backbone on the Veeva Development Cloud. The primary goal is to accelerate clinical trials and drug launches through enhanced collaboration, automation, and data consistency, ultimately benefiting patients by bringing safe and effective treatments to market faster.

The conversation highlights Novo Nordisk's journey towards becoming a "Veeva first company" in clinical development, driven by a need to maximize value from its existing multiple Veeva Vault investments. This led to a shift from a traditional vendor-buyer relationship to a more collaborative, strategic partnership where Novo Nordisk acts as an early adopter, helping to shape Veeva's product roadmaps and providing crucial industry feedback. Veeva, in turn, aims to build the "industry cloud for life sciences," simplifying technology and standardizing processes across the pharmaceutical sector. The partnership specifically addresses challenges in clinical, regulatory, and safety operations, aiming to overcome issues like fragmented systems, manual handoffs, inconsistent data standards, and compliance risks.

A key initiative mentioned is "Project Vibe," a 12-week effort undertaken by Novo Nordisk to identify opportunities across the clinical, regulatory, and safety value chain to better leverage their Veeva investments. This project underscores a foundational shift in operational strategy, moving beyond mere system upgrades to a fundamental re-evaluation of how the company operates and collaborates. The speakers also touch upon the broader industry challenge of "spaghetti diagrams" – overcomplicated processes and a lack of standardization due to disparate point solutions. Veeva's role is to provide a common platform, standard applications, and best practices to alleviate these burdens, enabling greater efficiency not just for individual companies but for the entire life sciences ecosystem, including CROs and other partners. The integration of AI and Generative AI into Veeva's platform is also discussed as a critical component for further enhancing efficiency and automation, with Novo Nordisk collaborating on identifying high-impact use cases.

Key Takeaways:

• Strategic Partnerships Overcome Traditional Vendor-Buyer Dynamics: The collaboration between Novo Nordisk and Veeva exemplifies a shift from transactional vendor-buyer relationships to strategic partnerships, where clients like Novo Nordisk become early adopters and co-creators, influencing product roadmaps and providing feedback for industry-wide improvements.
• Unifying the Digital Backbone for Efficiency: Novo Nordisk's strategy involves "uniting the digital backbone" across clinical, regulatory, and safety operations using the Veeva Development Cloud. This aims to standardize processes, improve data consistency, and enhance collaboration, moving away from fragmented systems and manual handoffs.
• Addressing Industry Fragmentation and Complexity: The pharmaceutical industry often suffers from "spaghetti diagrams" of point solutions, leading to overcomplicated processes and a lack of standardization. Veeva's "industry cloud" approach seeks to simplify this by providing a common platform, standard applications, and best practices.
• AI and Generative AI as Enablers of Automation: Veeva is actively integrating AI and Generative AI (including Large Language Models) into its platform and applications to drive greater efficiency and automation. Collaborations with partners like Novo Nordisk are crucial for identifying the most impactful use cases for these advanced technologies.
• "Project Vibe" as a Model for Value Identification: Novo Nordisk's "Project Vibe" was a focused 12-week effort to identify opportunities across the clinical, regulatory, and safety value chain to maximize value from Veeva investments. This structured approach can serve as a model for other companies seeking to optimize their platform utilization.
• Standardization is Key for Compliance and Operational Excellence: Standardizing regulatory information management taxonomy and other data standards is critical for improving document handling, reducing compliance risks, and streamlining day-to-day operations, moving beyond mere system upgrades to foundational operational shifts.
• Patient-Centric Outcomes Drive Digital Transformation: The ultimate goal of these operational efficiencies and digital transformations is to accelerate access to safe and effective treatments for patients. By making processes "better, faster, and cheaper," more resources can be allocated to R&D, and therapies can reach patients more quickly.
• Broader Industry Impact of Learnings: The insights and best practices gained from the Novo Nordisk-Veeva partnership are intended to feed back into Veeva's offerings for the broader life sciences industry, creating a ripple effect of improved efficiency and effectiveness across the ecosystem.

Tools/Resources Mentioned:

• Veeva Development Cloud
• Veeva Vault Promomats
• Veeva Safety
• AI / Generative AI (Large Language Models)

Key Concepts:

• Digital Backbone: Refers to the integrated and standardized technological infrastructure that supports an organization's core operations, enabling seamless data flow and collaboration.
• Simplification and Standardization: Core principles of the partnership, aiming to reduce complexity in processes and data formats across regulated operations to improve efficiency and compliance.
• Co-creation / Strategic Partnership: A collaborative model where a client (Novo Nordisk) works closely with a vendor (Veeva) to develop and refine solutions, influencing product roadmaps and sharing learnings.
• Industry Cloud: A specialized cloud platform tailored to the specific needs and regulatory requirements of a particular industry, such as life sciences, offering common applications and standards.
• Project Vibe: A specific initiative by Novo Nordisk to identify and capitalize on opportunities to enhance value from their Veeva investments across various operational areas.

Examples/Case Studies:

• Novo Nordisk's "Veeva First" Strategy: Novo Nordisk's decision to prioritize Veeva as its primary platform in clinical development, leading to a strategic partnership to maximize value from existing and future Veeva investments.
• Veeva Vault Promomats Adoption (2018): Novo Nordisk's earlier adoption of Veeva Vault Promomats to manage expanding content demands for commercialization, demonstrating a long-standing relationship with Veeva.
• Standardizing Regulatory Information Management Taxonomy: A concrete example of the partnership's efforts to improve document handling and data consistency across functions by standardizing how regulatory information is classified and managed.